Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/51

45 STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK'S JOURNALS. 45 now deposited. There is besides one volume of astronomical observa- tions & other matter by Captain Lewis, a small copy book containing some notes by Captain Lewis the rough draft of his letter to the President from S^ Louis announcing his return and two statistical tables of the various tribes of Indians west of the Mifsifsipi made by Governor Clark. These are all the observations which occur to me as promising to be useful to the Committee. Very respectfully yrs NICHOLAS BIDDLE Honble WILLIAM TILGMAN, Chairman of the Historical Committee of the Philos 1 Society. Here the records of Jefferson's search suddenly stop. Neither the Federal Government nor the American Philo- sophical Society having decided to publish them, these priceless manuscripts slumbered untouched for nearly seventy-five years in the library vault of the society, prac- tically unknown to historical scholars. The two-volume Biddle narrative an abbreviated paraphrase, but com- monly accepted by the world as the actual journals of Lewis and Clark had, after the first period of neglect, been reprinted over and over again in England and America (about twenty distinct editions) and been translated into the German and Dutch languages. In 1892 Dr. Elliott Coues, eminent as a scientist and traveler, as well as an editor of American historical sources, was engaged in editing with elaborate notes a new edition of Biddle. He already had most, if not all, of his matter before him in galley proofs when (December) he learned for the first time of the existence of the original manu- scripts in Philadelphia. Armed with a letter from the explorer's son, Jefferson Kearny Clark, of St. Louis, Coues requested the loan of the journals from their custodians. This was granted by the society (vote of December 16), and the manuscripts were accordingly sent to him at Washington. He considered it too late to block out the work afresh and to discard Biddle's text, but compromised by enriching his notes with many citations from the