=The Lewis and Clark Expedition.=--Another exploring expedition sought a path to extend the commerce of the United States in the far Oregon country. The great Rocky Mountain ranges precluded direct approach. The idea had evidently fastened itself upon Thomas Jefferson, even before he became president, that the Missouri River might be made the highway across the continent, and that trade and commerce thus engendered would inure to the benefit of the country. Also being a highly educated man, he was deeply interested in extending the geographical and biological knowledge of this vast region even though no remuneration to the nation might come therefrom. Furthermore, it is possible, he desired to secure the territories beyond the Rockies as a part of the country, but he was too shrewd to make plain statements to that effect. His shrewdness and the business sagacity of Livingston, minister to France, coupled with the financial straits of Napoleon resulted in obtaining an extensive portion of the country without which the United States could not have developed into a strong well-bound nation reaching from coast to coast. Whether Mr. Jefferson would have attempted to take this country by force matters not now. The fact that the Lewis and Clark military expedition was ready to start almost as soon as the purchase was made, lends suspicion to that idea. The nomination of Monroe to be Minister to France, the man whom Jefferson expected to conduct the Louisiana negotiations, and who arrived in France just in time to see them completed by Livingston, was made January 11, 1803; while the message proposing the expedition was submitted January 18; the treaty of cession for the purchase was signed May 2; and during that same month the expedition which had previously organized left its winter quarters about a day’s journey from St. Louis, and proceeded up the Missouri River. The expedition consisted of forty-five persons in three boats, one a flat boat decked over at the ends and two pirogues[29] together with a number of horses which were to be driven along the bank for the use of the hunters. The personnel consisted of the two officers, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant (by courtesy Captain) William Clark, both of whom were from families already distinguished in border service; twenty-seven men who expected to make the entire journey; seven soldiers and nine voyageurs who were to go only to the Mandan villages of the Missouri, where the party would winter. Of the twenty-seven permanent members one was a half-breed hunter who would also act as interpreter, two were French voyageurs, and one a negro servant of Clark. All, except the black slave, were enlisted in the army that discipline might be secured. Their progress was necessarily slow and a full account of it reads like a romance. They of course had to live off the country as they proceeded. There was no roadway along the river, often the brush was thick and the grass high; the river with