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In which they cross over the rockies, go down the Columbia, spend the summer on the West Coast, returning the following year. While Lewis & Clark do split up after crossing the rockies they do not go into the territory of Yellowstone or the Black Hills, which rather disappointed me as I would like to have read their observations. And again the superfluity of game, black bears, grizzly bears, bison, elk, moose, wolves, swift foxes, etc, etc.
The second volume again reminds one of the horrors that were commonplace, flies, mosquitos, gnats, ticks, abscesses, the scourge of illnesses now largely extinct or forgotten about....
Descriptions of unknown illnesses cured through sweat lodges, of a Chief lying perfectly still, a paralysis of sound mind and body, for 3 years, descriptions vague enough that no concrete diagnosis can be made.
Then, on the Pacific side, there are the descriptions of the countless villages and charnel houses they investigated along the way; the grave goods offered, the sacrificing of horses to honour dead tribe members. And the descriptions, largely unflattering, of the various tribes they encountered, the head-binding & shaping techniques used to mark identity amongst different tribes, their various appearances and customs, etc, etc.
One highlight, the return of a medal bestowed upon a chief, the chief knowing to be wary of strangers bearing gifts, a tale as old as time, because with the gifts attend the invisible miasma of disease, guns, war, and change.
Now - as interesting as that all was, and informative, it's time now to try and find some contemporaneous native writings on Lewis & Clark to, to try and understand and see the other point of view, too often we're left with the victors narrative and miss out on the impression they might have made upon the tribes they contacted, which would be as valuable. Lewis & Clark were only heroes to the American Government, I suspect strongly they were not so well regarded by the locals...
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Didn't think to pick it up as I got plenty out of the cover and the reviews on the back...
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Reading the Lewis & Clark Journals - living vicariously the Spirit of Adventure, the Charge by Jefferson, instructions, furnishing them with all manners of assistance, letters of credit against the US Government, in every way preparing for the success of the expedition. The purpose, of course, to have them report upon the newly acquired territories of the United States, and introduce the natives to their new government.
I was disappointed they didn't bring along a prospector.
Anyways, random thoughts inspired by the first volume:
The territory was unknown to them, but visited by a great many others, including Native Americans & French Fur Traders.
The reporting from outposts ever further from 'civilization' as they gradually leave behind the familiar and enter into the unknown.
The abundance of natural fruit (plums, cherries, etc), game (wolves, ferocious grizzly bears, bison herds in the tens of thousands), descriptions of now extinct (Carolina) parakeets, other species.
The idea of "Frontiers" - always personal, somebody, somewhere, some intelligence has always been before. "New" is always "New to Us".
That they travel with a vaccine against Smallpox - a lesser version of the pox that will build their immunity. "Vaccines" have been around for 1000's of years, so take that Anti-Vaxxers!!!
Noting that in their medicine chest almost every cure involves lead or mercury, the greater toxicity of which would hopefully suspend the ailment before killing the patient.
The descriptions of fossils weathering out - a "petrified fish skeleton some 45 feet long", that they are perpetually finding themselves much annoyed by ticks, mosquitos, blowflies, gnats, midges, and the countless biting flies of the prairies, of buffalo jumps, of all the wonders they passed upon the way - and then - the descriptions of what is now Montana - recognizing the landscapes - now largely tamed - Milk River, Great Falls, etc, and marvel at how we've brought under the plow so much, yet it hasn't in the least added to it's fertility. Following along the journals - looking forward to descriptions of the Black Hills and Yellowstone (but they will, I imagine, be covered in Volume 2 - the return home), the descriptions of the tribes and people they meet (not always kind, or through the appropriate cultural lens), the descriptions of their dress, habit, customs (for example, how they marvelled at Captain Lewis's Black Slave York, and the natives would all offer him up their wives for a time, in hopes of a more permanent souvenir of his visit), the realization (again) that we are so little ourselves and so much the culture within we are raised, the nods to Levi-Bruhl's "Primitive Mentality" - the ceremony to make a shield, by which the shield acquires a magical ability to repel all bullets and arrows, the mourning ceremonies - cutting of the hair, the severing of digits from the hand - symbols of immense antiquity and long out of mind. The more "Lascivious" portions described in Latin, ...
I could go on. It's travel through time and place to a world physically adjacent and yet very different. I followed along the journals with a map giving the dates they arrived at each location: https://www.nps.gov/lecl/planyourvisit/maps.htm
And if you can't find a hardcopy you can read the original's here: https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/journals/contents
My version is somewhat edited for clarity (2 volumes, 1000 pages), the originals are somewhat longer. No great prose, merely the thrill of discovery.
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This was an enjoyable easy read. And the story of the Journal's discovery, along with the efforts to bring it to publication, are every bit as interesting as the contents.
This, fleshing out my 18th Century reading, a contemporary of Laclos, Cassanova, Lord Chesterfield, familiar with the famous actors Garrick and Sheridan, Samuel Johnson, too many others to list but the degeneracy of an age frankly laid bare for all to read.
The 'plot' - as such, a young Scottish gentleman gains a tolerable allowance from his father and sets himself about London a proper gentleman of leisure. Arranging introductions and meeting all of the people of quality (and many of none) he fully sets out the descriptions of the pleasures and vicissitudes of youth.
Some highlights, as nobody ever follows my recommendations anyways (and - while enjoyable I wouldn't describe it as 'essential')
Samuel Johnson's take on Melancholy - "Melancholy people" said he, "are apt to fly to intemperance, which gives a momentary relief but sinks the soul much lower in misery." & "Mr. Johnson said today that a woman's preaching was like a dog's walking upon his hinder legs. It was not done well, but you were surprised to find it done at all."
This familiarity stood him on good stead, as he was later to write "The Biography of Samuel Johnson".
Thursday, 7 April 1763 - "I breakfasted with Temple. This day was afterwards passed in dissipation which has left no traces on my brain."
Friday, 15 April 1763 - "Temple and I dined at Clifton's. I remember nothing more." This Temple proving a bad acquaintance. The footnotes ironically point out that at this point he would be considered abstinent, or temperate, given the spirit of the age.
Thursday, 19 May 1763 - "We had a good dinner and plenty of wine. I resolved to be merry while I could, and soon see whether the foul fiend of the genitals had prevailed."
His attending the Tower of London to visit the prisoners, then later attending their execution, which throws him into a dreadful state of mind. Or his six weeks spent in convalescing from the Clap (gonorrhea) - his third such dose already as a young man, then immediately off to pleasure himself with the ladies of the town, embodying perfectly the memory of youth.
Wednesday, 13 of April 1763 "...I should have mentioned last night that I met with a monstrous big whore in the Strand, whom I had a great curiosity to lubricate, as the saying is. I went into a tavern with her where she displayed to me all the parts of her enormous carcass, but I found that her avarice was as large as her ass, for she would by no means take what I offered her. I therefore pulled the bell, and discharged the reckoning, to her no small surprise and mortification..." and then continues to complain of the waiters who enable and profit by these little enterprises...
Conversations, some dull, others more sparkling, he strikes you as a man of no great depth or substance (but at this age he was still young), filled with ambition, detailed notes describing his transgressions (of surprisingly vanilla tastes), the High debauch (wherein he treats the ladies to chambers and wine), vs the Low debauch, wherein his pleasure is seized in the alleys or streets, in his notes resolving no more of the Low Debauches, and then within the week subsequently indulging yet again;
Tuesday 10 May 1763 "...At the bottom of the Haymarket I picked up a strong, jolly young damsel, and taking her under the arm I conducted her to Westminster Bridge, and then in armour complete did I engage her upon this noble edifice. The whim of doing it there with the Thames rolling below us amused me much. Yet after the brutish appetite was sated, I could not but despise myself for being so closely united with such a low wretch."
I'll need to find the rest of Boswell's journals, and read his "Biography of Samuel Johnson", whom he held in great esteem, and from the quotes given and the reviews of others was well deserved.
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A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe - The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art and Science - A Voyage from 1 to 10 - Michael S. Schneider
This was actually surprisingly informative - and - like Hegel, JS Mill and now Schneider, the world is well explained. Everything from the possibilities of numbers in 2, 3 and 4 dimensions, how they relate to world religions, spirituality, art, science, how different numbering systems (for examples the Greeks started counting at 3) worked and the reasoning behind, how it was encoded in the names of the Gods and myths, and knowledge was passed from initiate to initiate...
There are embedded in this compelling "proofs", if you'd have it that way, the the universe is of a designed and deeply spiritual construction, but as well argues that - at least as we experience it - it could be no other way.
Inspirational in an artistic sense, going far beyond the Golden Mean, and grounding in the history and symbolism of math opens up some very interesting possibilities ...