History · · C.B. Greenberg
A Proper Scientific Record: Part X
While Jefferson anticipated well for the Expedition itself, he did not reckon with events that followed, which threatened thoughtful assimilation of the Expedition’s data.
The act of making and preserving a proper scientific record, or even understanding what that means, requires some degree of training and literacy. On June 20, 1803, Thomas Jefferson’s extensive written instructions to Meriwether Lewis concerning the Lewis and Clark Expedition to come were made complete (1). About making observations “of latitude and longitude, at all remarkable points on the river,” and all other on the “courses of the river,” he wrote: “Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy; to be entered distinctly and intelligibly for others as well as yourself;”. He added: ”Several copies of these, as well as your other notes, should be made at leisure times, and put in the care of the most trustworthy of your attendants to guard, by multiplying them again…