Clark remarks on the region’s geology and Lewis collects another plant specimen as they travel up the Missouri below present Nebraska City. A stray Indian dog is fed, and in Washington City, the Secretary of War prepares to send an Osage delegation home.
Partridge Pea
Chamaecrista fasciculata (also Cassia fasciulata)
© 2 August 2011 at Spirit Mound by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Stray Dog
Saw a Dog this evening appeared to be nearly Starved to death, he must have been left by Some party of Hunters we gave him Some meet, he would not come near
—William Clark
Current Speed
Measured the Current and found that in forty one Seconds it run 50 fathoms
—William Clark
Mineral Observations
this Hill is about 200 foot high compsd. of Sand Stone inter mingled with Iron ore of an inferior quallity on a bed of Soft Slate Stone.
—William Clark
Lost Specimen No. 29
No. 29. Taken on the 18th of July.— an annuel plant puting up many branches from the root has a leaf like the pateridge bea[n], is jointed bears a number of yllow pea-like flowers which grow on the seed stems which project from the main branches and which are unattended with leaves; these flowers grow all arround this stem and give it the appearance of a tausell. the [l]eaf stems ar long and have 24 par of leaves.
—Meriwether Lewis
Moulton identifies this lost specimen, received by John Vaughn in 1805 (see The Donation Book), as Cassia fasciulata Michx., Showy Partridge Pea.[1]Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:458, 467.
The Osage Delegation
War Department
July 18th 1804Sir [Moses Hooke]
You will procure a light Boat to be built, capable of carrying fifteen men with their baggage, and to draw but very little water. . . . You will receive the public horses which the Osage Indians under the care of Capt. Chouteau [Pierre Chouteau] will ride to Pittsburg, and have then sold as soon as recruited . . . . You will furnish suitable quarters for them while at Pittsburg and assist them in procuring provisions for their voyage down the river—And you will write by Capt. Chouteau to the Commanding Officer at Massac requesting him to treat the party with the greatest attention and to furnish them with an escort from the Garrison to Kaskaskia and with provisions for their journey. You will send six sober men with a noncommissioned Officer with the party down the river to Massac. . . .
Yours &c.
[Henry Dearborn][2]Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783–1854, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 203.
Notes
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Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).