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From Lewis and Clark to the U.S. Geological Survey
In Thomas Jefferson's June 20, 1803 instructions to Meriwether Lewis, the
scientific goals of the mission were carefully outlined.
. . . . The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, &
such principal stream of it, as, by it's course & communication with the
waters of the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct & practicable water
communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.
Beginning
at the mouth of the Missouri, you will take observations of latitude &
longitude, at all remarkable points on the river, & especially at the
mouths of rivers, at rapids, at islands & other places & objects
distinguished by such natural marks & characters of a durable kind, as
that they may with certainty be recognized hereafter. the courses of the
river between these points of observation may be supplied by the compass, the
log-line & by time, corrected by the observations themselves. the
variations of the compass too, in different places, should be noticed.
Other object worthy of notice will be the soil & face of the country,
it's growth & vegetable productions; especially those not of the U. S. the
animals of the country. . . . the mineral productions of every kind; . . . .
Volcanic appearances. climate as characterized by the thermometer, by the
proportion of rainy, cloudy & clear days, by lightening, hail, snow, ice,
by the access & recess of frost, by the winds prevailing at different
seasons, the dates at which particular plants put forth or lose their flowers,
or leaf, times of appearance of particular birds, reptiles or insects.
(For the complete text, visit The
Letters of Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826)
Jefferson
had outlined the first of many explorations of the new American West.
Lewis and Clarks expedition inspired others and they were soon followed west of
the Mississippi. Before Clark could finish his map of the west, explorers
brought back more information that was incorporated into the map he completed in
1810. Those expeditions included William Dunbar's exploration of the
Ouachita River, Thomas Freeman's Red River (of the south) expedition of 1806,
James Wilkinson's expedition on the Arkansas River, Zebulon Pike's
expeditions to the southern Rockies and upper Mississippi River, and the
1807-1808 exploration of the Yellowstone basin by former Corps of Discovery
members George Drouillard and John Colter (William
Clark. Facsimile of "A Map of part of the Continent of North America."
1810.).
In the years that followed, many surveys were conducted by the government
(under
the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers) and the railroads
in response to the increasing resource and transportation needs of the United
States. As the demand for resources grew, science became an ever more
important part of expeditions. Clarence
King, who became the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said that
the year 1867 marked "in the history of national geological work, a turning
point, when the science ceased to be dragged in the dust of rapid exploration
and took a commanding position in the professional work of the country."
Four surveys became known as "The
Four Great Surveys of the West." These surveys were lead by
Clarence King, Ferdinand V. Hayden, M.D., Major John Wesley Powell, and
Lieutenant George Wheeler. Powell, and his expedition, was much like Lewis
and Clark and their Voyage of Discovery. Like Lewis and Clark, Powell had
military experience (losing his right arm in the civil war) and, like Clark,
Powell was largely self-taught. Lewis and Clark explored unknown parts of
the Louisiana Purchase and the Rocky Mountains. Powell explored the
unknown canyonlands in the American southwest. Like the Voyage of
Discovery, Powell's journey had many hardships but Powell
and crew showed undaunted courage as they took boats through the Grand Canyon.
Like
Lewis and Clark's expedition, Powell's explorations of the Grand Canyon inspired
historians. Many books have been written about Powell including the USGS'
account The
Colorado River Region and John Wesley Powell, by Mary C. Rabbitt, and
others.
By 1879, three surveys were actively mapping the West under the auspices of the
Interior Department: the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories
under Ferdinand V. Hayden, the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky
Mountain Region under John Wesley Powell, and the land-parceling surveys of the
General Land Office. The Army Engineers were also doing surveying work.
The
U.S. Geological Survey was established on March 3, 1879 in response to a report
from the National Academy of Sciences, which had been asked by the Congress in
1878 to provide a plan for surveying and mapping the Territories of the United
States that would secure the best possible results at the least possible cost.
Clarence King and John
Wesley Powell were the first and second directors, respectively, of the U.S.
Geological Survey, bridging the time of Lewis and Clark and exploration of the
unknown and the beginning of formally organized and budgeted government surveys
of the resources of the United States.
Today, the U.S. Geological Survey is involved in many of the scientific
endeavors planned by Thomas Jefferson and undertaken by Lewis and Clark 200
years ago. Because of its origin
in natural resource surveys and the similarity of the USGS
mission to Thomas Jefferson's charge to Meriwether Lewis, the USGS is the
organizational successor to Lewis and Clark.
To learn more about the U.S. Geological Survey's scientific endeavors on any
subject, please type the subject of your interest in the box below and press
search.
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