Books: Manifest Destiny

THE JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK (504 pp.)—Edited by Bernard DeVoto —Houghton Mifflin ($6.50).

This was mighty strange stuff to be going to the President of the U.S. In one of the four boxes there was "a red fox Skin Containing a Magpie." In another "the bones & Skeleton of a Small burrowing wolf." A third contained a tin box of "insects mice &c."

These relics were not meant as a vulgar insult to President Jefferson. They were zoological samplings from Meriwether Lewis and William Clark,* of the U.S. Army, out to explore Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase. Every U.S. schoolboy has heard of them,...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!