Lewis & Clark Site Map

THEME
In the early nineteenth century, the land lying west of the Mississippi River was a mysterious place to most easterners. Therefore they did what humans beings usually do when facing the unknown--they made up theories about it.

The less that is known about a place (outer space for example), the more fanciful and imaginative theories are likely to be. On the other hand, if some facts about the mysterious place are known, theories are apt to be based more on logic than on imagination. Logic is a tricky device, however. Something that seems to be logical may not be if some of the vital facts are missing.

Many theories about the "unknown" West existed before the Corps of Discovery made their epic journey. Lewis and Clark were aware of them all, but due to their scientific skills, a lot of mistaken ideas were laid to rest after their journey.

GOALS

• To familiarize students with the American West as it was believed to be prior to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
• To demonstrate that imagining unknown places is a human trait that occurs in all times and places.
• To highlight the qualities of Lewis and Clark as scientists--although Clark had no formal training in scientific method and Lewis had only a month's crash course in Philadelphia just before he set off to the Pacific.

OBJECTIVES
When the lesson is completed, students will be able to:

• List three misconceptions about the West prior to Lewis and Clark.
• Contrast pure speculation with logical thinking.
• Give three arguments to refute the idea that nothing much had happened in the
  west before the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

ADVANCE PREPARATION
Preview the contents and teachings aids for this unit by clicking on the following capitalized titles: The INTRODUCTION provides an overview of the unit's contents and organization. The Lesson Plan, IMAGES OF THE WEST BEFORE LEWIS AND CLARK, reviews some of the pre-expedition ideas scientists and scholars held about the lands west of the Mississippi. Students are then challenged to imagine places where they have never been. In a follow-up activity (THE REAL WEST: LEWIS AND CLARK ON THE TRAIL 1804-1806), students work in groups to discover what Lewis and Clark actually found in the West. Each group is assigned one or more of the western ecological zones through which the Corps of Discovery passed. Group members conduct research about their zones including the plants, animals, and native peoples described in the expedition journals.

Be sure to look over the supplemental materials also. To refresh your recollections of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, CLICK HERE for a summary of the entire expedition. For suggestions about choosing Lewis and Clark resources, click on LEWIS AND CLARK RESOURCE MATERIALS. For additional information, see TEACHING AIDS "I". The GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE provides assistance with names and terms associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Finally, the EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS AND MULTIPLE-INTELLIGENCES CHARTS H, I, J, K contain specific educational standards and multiple-intelligences goals fulfilled by this unit.

IMPLEMENTATION
Background Information
From earliest times up to the present, people have always speculated about unknown places. Sometimes the theories are purely fanciful with little or no basis in reality. For example, in the early nineteenth century, a man named John Cleve Symmes wrote a book in which he stated that the center of the earth was hollow. He further claimed that entrances to the inside of the earth existed at both poles. Amazingly enough, his theory had wide support. In 1828, he tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade Congress to fund an expedition to find the entrance.

Before Lewis and Clark made their epic journey through the American West, theories of what was "out there" flourished. Some were plausible while others were mostly stretches of the imagination. Since the idea of a Northwest Passage was still very much alive, many theories focused on that hope. One of these became known as the "pyramidal height-of-land" theory. This was the idea that the highest mountains of the West were clumped in one area. The four major rivers of North America had their sources at the center of these mountains, each flowing in a different direction.

All four river sources were believed to be close together. For example, travelers would only have to go about thirty miles from the Missouri River to the Columbia River which would then take them directly to the Pacific ocean. Another theory envisioned an enormous lake (called Lake Thoyago) which was said to exist across the mountains. From Lake Thoyago, a river flowed to the Columbia and thence to the Pacific Ocean.

Another widespread idea appealed to people of a more romantic nature. The French, who had settled in the semi-tropical south, pictured the western interior as an idyllic wilderness--a Garden of Eden--where the living was easy. The native peoples who lived there were thought to be wealthy and living in splendid cities. While French writers dreamed of the garden, British traders, explorers, and settlers to the North had a different view. From their experiences, the western interior was a vast desert with little productive possibilities.

Anyone who had some stake in the West molded it to his or her own viewpoint. For example, scientists hoped there still might be wooly mammoths or mastodons grazing on the western plains. (The rumor that scientists believed dinosaurs might still exist in the west is not true. Dinosaurs were unknown at that time. Although Clark actually found the fossilized bone of a dinosaur, it was not identified as such until much later. For more about Clark's dinosaur and other fossils found on the expedition click on http://www.nps.gov/jeff/LewisClark2/TheJourney/Fossils.htm.)

President Jefferson obtained copies of many books and maps about the West and he and Lewis had long discussions about them. Neither man believed the pyramidal heights theory in its entirety, but both were certain that the Missouri and Columbia Rivers were close together.

During their long journey, the Corps of Discovery laid to rest a lot of the early theories. There was no Northwest passage, much to the disappointment of those who stood to gain from such a waterway. There was no pyramid of high mountains from which the major rivers sprang. Lake Thoyago and its rivers running to the sea did not exist. Neither was there any sign of wooly mammoths or mastodons grazing on the plains. Most of the native peoples observed by the Corps of Discovery had adapted ingeniously to their environments but there were no shining cities nor did the natives have stockpiles of gold and other riches.

(For more information, click on TEACHING AIDS "I" and scroll to "Early Ideas about the West.")

Class Discussion
Today we are amused by some of these early theories. We often wonder how anyone could believe such stories. Perhaps we should not be too hard on those who formulated them, however, because people still do the same thing today. In the face of the unknown, human beings rely on their imaginations as well as on logical thinking. Let's try some experiments.

A. (The purpose of the first experiment is to test the idea that when little or nothing is known about a place, the imagination takes over. Pass out a piece of drawing paper to each student.) On this sheet of paper, draw a picture of the deepest place in the ocean, farther down than any human has ever gone. Pretend you are down there in a deep-sea diving vehicle. Or, if you prefer, suppose you are an astronaut on the first space ship ever to reach the planet Pluto. Draw a picture of what you see as you touch down for a landing on its surface. (When students finish drawing, have them show and describe their pictures. Ask where their ideas came from. Most pictures will be a mixture of what they know from science classes, what they have gathered from popular culture, and their own imaginations. The pictures will probably differ from each other for the same reasons. After discussing the pictures, show the latest NASA photos from outer space and the latest deep sea probes at the following websites:)

Outer space: http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/
Oceans: http://www.mos.org/oceans/planet/features.html
Both: http://www.seasky.org/

B. (The purpose of the second experiment is to test the idea that logic comes into play when some facts are known. Example: The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, administered by the National Park Service, is a place that is well known to most Americans by its exterior, but not everyone knows what it looks like inside. Hold up a picture of the Gateway Arch or show a picture of it on the Internet. Discuss what it is, where it is located, etc. Ask if anyone has been there. Other well-known places will work as well--the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, etc.) Now, turn your paper over and draw a large outline of The Gateway Arch as it looks in this picture. When you finish the outline, I want you to draw a picture of what is on the inside of the Arch. Also in your picture, show where and how you enter the Arch. (When students finish, have them compare their drawings. In this experiment, students "fill in the blanks" between what they know and what they can logically expect. For example, if students know that visitors can go to the top of the Arch, it follows that there has to be some way to get up there--a stairway, an elevator, a tram, whatever. After discussing the pictures, show a cutaway drawing of the Arch and photos of its interior by clicking on http://www.nps.gov/jeff/arch-ov.htm. The official park guide also has a cutaway drawing. For a copy, write or call the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, 11 North Fourth Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63102, Ph. (314) 355-1700.)

D. Help students connect these exercises with ideas about the West before Lewis and Clark.

1. When people know little or nothing about a place or thing, their imaginations are unbounded.
2. The more people know, however, the more they use logic to fill in the blanks in their perceptions.
3. What seems logical is not always true, however. For instance, it seemed logical to many people (including Lewis and Jefferson) that the Missouri River would connect with the Columbia just as the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers did at St. Louis. But in fact, it did not.

Lewis and Clark Go West
President Jefferson was tired of speculating--or hearing others speculate about the West. He wanted to know what was there, so he sent the Corps of Discovery to find out.

When writing about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, some authors (even today) leave the impression that the West was just a great big empty place where nothing much had happened prior to the Corps of Discovery. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Scores of Native peoples made their homes in the West just as their ancestors had done for thousands of years. In the Southwest and in California, Spanish settlements and native cultures existed side-by-side. To the north, Canada was home to British and French settlers as well as native societies.

Seafarers from several nations had already explored the Pacific coast. In 1792 Robert Gray, an American sea captain, discovered the mouth of the Columbia River, giving the United States a claim to the Oregon Territory. Trading vessels followed, sailing as far up the river as possible. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, a Scottish fur trader, gained fame as an explorer of the Canadian Northwest. His travel journals were published in 1801 and read by Lewis and Clark before they set out on their journey. Reports from trappers, settlers, native peoples, and explorers such as MacKenzie led to more realistic ideas of the West. However, it was the Lewis and Clark Expedition that first abolished many of the major misconceptions.

CONCLUSION
It is easy to see how fanciful stories about the West could have arisen in the absence of factual information. However, the careful observations and detailed reports made by Lewis and Clark dispelled a lot of the myths about the West. They were wrong about some of their conclusions, of course, but for men who had little formal education and only the crudest of tools by today's standards, the captains did an amazing job of depicting the West as it really was.

FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY
Follow up this lesson plan (LEWIS AND CLARK: FAMOUS EXPLORERS) with one or more of the related activities listed both in the INTRODUCTION and in this lesson plan under ADVANCE PREPARATION, number 1.