Such was the state of geographical discovery in the United States in 1816. The war with Great Britain had had an exhausting effect upon the resources and fiscal condition of the country. But, owing to the information gained by the operation of armies in the ample area west of the Alleghanies, it opened a new world for enterprise in that quarter. The treaty of 1814 with Great Britain, which affirmed the original boundaries of 1783, by terminating, at the same time, the war and the fallacious hopes of sovereignty set up for the Indian tribes, truly opened the Mississippi Valley to settlement. All eyes were turned to the general climate of the West, and its capacities of growth and expansion. The universal ardor which then arose and was spread, of its fertility, extent, and resources, has, from that era, filled the public mind, and fixed the liveliest hopes of the extension of the Union. The accession of Mr. Monroe to the presidency, 4th March, 1817, formed the opening of this new epoch of industrial empire and progress in the West. This period brought into the administration a man of great grasp of intellect and energy of character in Mr. Calhoun. By placing the army in a series of self-sustaining posts on the frontiers, in advance of the settlements, he gave them efficient protection against the still feverish tribes, who hovered--feeble and dejected from the results of the war, but in broken, discordant, and hostile masses--around the long and still dangerous line of the frontiers, from Florida to Detroit and the Falls of St. Anthony. He encouraged every means of acquiring true information of its geography and resources. In 1819, the military line was extended to Council Bluffs, on the Missouri, and to the Falls of St. Anthony, on the Mississippi. Major S. H. Long, of the Topographical Engineers, was directed to ascend the Missouri, for the purpose of exploring the region west to the Rocky Mountains. During the same year, he approved a plan for exploring the sources of the Mississippi, submitted by General Cass, who occupied the northwestern frontiers. The author having then returned from the exploration of the Ozark Highlands, and the mine country of Missouri and Arkansas,[5] received from Mr. Calhoun the appointment of geologist and mineralogist on this expedition; and having, at a subsequent period, been selected, as the leader of the expedition of 1832, to resume and complete the discoveries under the same authority, commenced in 1820, it is to the journals and notes kept on these separate occasions, that he is indebted for the data of the narratives and for the body of information now submitted. [5] _Vide_ Scenes and Adventures in the Semi-Alpine Region of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas, with a View of the Lead-Mines of Missouri. New York, 1819. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, and Co. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 256. 1853. WASHINGTON, D. C., October 24, 1854. CONTENTS. EXPEDITION OF 1820.