The present volume and the three which succeed it are devoted to a reprint of Edwin James's _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, 1820, . . . under the Command of Maj. S. H. Long_. This exploration was the outcome, and almost the only valuable result, of the ill-starred project popularly known at the time as the Yellowstone expedition, which had been designed to establish military posts on the upper Missouri for the several purposes of protecting the growing fur-trade, controlling the Indian tribes, and lessening the influence which British trading companies were believed to exert upon them.[1] The movement gave rise to great expectations, for interest in our Western territories was already keen; it was confidently hoped that an era of rapid development was about to open in the trans-Mississippi region, under government initiative and protection.[2] As originally planned, the scientific observations of the expedition were to be conducted by a company of specialists under the command of Major Long, to whom detailed instructions were issued by Secretary of War Calhoun.[3] The military branch, under Colonel Henry Atkinson,[4] was set in motion in the autumn of 1818, and a considerable body of troops passed the following winter near the present site of Leavenworth, Kansas. In the spring of 1819, however, defects in the plans began to hamper the execution of the enterprise. Those were the early days of steam navigation, and the waters of the Missouri had not yet been stirred by paddle-wheels. Prudence counselled that the success of the movement should not be staked on the behavior of steamboats in untried waters. Nevertheless, the authorities decided against the old-fashioned keel-boats recommended by Atkinson;[5] in arranging for transportation, a further blunder was made in engaging a contractor without competition or adequate securities. The service proved entirely inefficient, and it was not until late in September of 1819 that the troops were concentrated at Council Bluffs, where, perforce, a halt was made for the winter.