Contributions of Philadelphia to Lewis and Clark History
Part I-- Prelude (1803)
by Paul Russell Cutright

27. Some books carried by Lewis and Clark

Lewis and Clark carried west with them at least ten or twelve natural science reference books, including Barton's Elements of Botany, which had just come from the press. This was not a gift from the author, as one might guess, for we find that Lewis purchased "1 Copy Bartons Bottony," paying $6.00 for it. (37) But Lewis did leave Dr. Barton's home with a book under his arm, and that book was The History of Louisiana by Antoine Simor LePage du Pratz. Lewis carried this book with him to the Pacific, and, back in Philadelphia, returned to its owner. It is still in existence. (38) That Barton loaned it to Lewis is attested by an eye-catching inscription on the flyleaf written by Lewis. It reads:

Dr Benjamin Smith Barton was so obliging as to lend me this copy of Monsr Du Pratz's history of Louisiana in June 1803. it has been since conveyed by me to the Pacific Ocean through the interior of North America on my late tour thither and is now returned to its proprietor by his Friend and Obt Servt Meriwether Lewis Philadelphia, May 9th, 1807

Among other books Lewis and Clark took west with them were Richard Kirwan's Elements of Mineralogy (London, 1784), John Miller's two-volume edition of Linnaeus, (39) and a four-volume dictionary which may have been either Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia, or another set commonly called, after the publisher, Owen's Dictionary. (40) Dr. Barton may have suggested one or more of these titles to Lewis.

(37) Jackson, Letters, 96.

(38) Cutright, Paul Russell, "Lewis and Clark and DuPratz," Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, XXI, No. 1 (October, 1964), 31- 35.

(39) This was John Miller's An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, I (London, 1779); and An Illustration of the Termini Botanici of Linnaeus, II (London, 1789).

(40) Thwaites, op. cit., VI, 279-80. See also Donald Jackson, "Some Books Carried by Lewis and Clark," op. cit., 11-12.