Essay On Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis Is one of the most influential explorers in the United States; his exploration of the western part of North America and the biological data he gathered has changed our world by adding to our knowledge of natural history and geography. (see figure 1) Lewis Was born on August 18, 1774 in the state of Virginia. He lived in Virginia While he was in the state militia serving under Captain William Clark. Then He joined the Army where he finally received the rank of captain then the opportunity arose to become Thomas Jefferson's Personal secretary in Washington D.C. This showed that Thomas Jefferson had allot of trust in Lewis. While living there Lewis began to study his passion for the outdoors including botany, biology and natural

After he left home he still was always writing in journals about the plants and the animals he found in his travels. So when Thomas Jefferson invited Meriwether Lewis to go and explore the western United States for the purpose of studying and documenting plants and animal species for the benefit of mankind's knowledge of the world around them.(see fig. 4 He jumped on the opportunity immediately after getting the invitation to go on the exploration of the west he decided to get some education on everything that was known about North America at the time by every scientist, botanist , biologist that ever was. For at least a year he studied day and night and nothing could prepare him for what he saw on the expedition. As soon as they entered areas where people have not ever gone except indians. Plant and animal species were beginning to be discovered and lewis kept careful account of all the new and useful things discovered in the expedition like useful plants for medicine and animals that were poisonous. Lewis and clark are credited for discovering many of the modern animals that we commonly know today. For example the Timber wolf , the Mule deer, The Brown bear, hundreds of plants and birds that we know today also lots of different kinds of fish like different kinds of salmon and trout. without Lewises journals and Taxidermy of some of these species we wouldn't have discovered them for at least another fifty