38 REUBEN GOLD THWAITES. mass of notes which he had before him may be thus roughly computed : Words. Lewis and Clark journals (Amer. Philosophical So- ciety codices) 900,000 Gass journal (as printed) 83,000 Ord way journal unknown, but possibly '.-' . 100,000 1,083,000 To this we should add about 150,000 words in the Clark- Voorhis collection, later to be described, and undoubtedly at one time in Biddle's hands, and whatever additional notes he may have made during conversations with' Clark and Shannon, or as the result of correspondence with the former and they must have been copious. A large pro- portion of the scientific matter of the Lewis and Clark notebooks, however which may have aggregated possi- bly a fourth of the journals as a whole -had been elimin- ated by Clark and Biddle. This material, carefully copied out, was sent to Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, an eminent naturalist in Philadelphia. 20 Doctor Barton agreed to prepare a special volume, u which was to have been (by contract) prepared in six months from the time" of the appearance of the narrative of the journey. Owing to Barton's illness and consequent death this "scientific part" 21 was not written. Thus, while the Biddle narra- tive gives a popular account of some of the principal dis- coveries, the scientific data so laborously kept by Lewis and Clark chiefly the former has thus far not been given to the world. It was Biddle's task to weave this great mass of hetero- geneous data into a readable narrative which should have unity and a simple and forceful literary style. Adopting so far as possible the language of the original journals, 20 A professor of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania and, a vice-presi- dent of the American Philosophical Society. 21 Clark's letter to Jefferson, dated St. Louis, October 10, 1816, in archives of American Philosophical Society.
