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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Drawing the Line - Edwin Danson
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Mar 24, 22:55 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Mar 24, 22:55 -0500
On Mar 24, 2004, at 10:27 PM, Kieran Kelly wrote: > 2) Given the scientific achievements of these two -"A Geordie and a > baker's > boy in the forests of the Iroquois" as Mark Knoffler says in his song > "Sailing to Philadelphia" - why aren't their achievements more > celebrated > in the USA. There is a vast following in America and overseas for > Lewis and > Clark, who came along a considerable time after Mason and Dixon. After > reading Dansons book it would appear that these blokes would have put > the > Captains in the shade. > > It appears some very capable people have been overlooked in history - > Thompson in Canada, Mason & Dixon in America, Everest in India and > Gregory > in Australia. Kieran, Thank you for mentioning this book. It sounds very interesting. One point about Lewis and Clark is that they had the full backing of the U.S. Government under Thomas Jefferson, who was then the President. Lewis had been President Jefferson's secretary prior to the expedition. Jefferson enjoyed the confidence of most of the nation's scientists, but his reach extended far beyond the scientific community into his political party and its public relations apparatus, as well as into the southern aristocracy. Lewis and Clark's expedition also served to cement U.S. claims to the Oregon Territory, which probably was not part of the Louisiana Territory. So their expedition expanded the country, which increased the expedition's appeal and publicity. They were well publicized before they left and were out of touch for almost 3 years, which added to the mystique. I only know a little about Everest, and hardly nothing of the others. Everest was not expanding the borders of a country and was operating far from the monarch and the central population in Great Britain, whose imprimatur may have lent considerably more publicity to Everest's efforts. Also, his survey took much longer than Lewis and Clark's expedition, and he was not out of touch with European civilization for 3 years during his survey. Perhaps Lewis and Clark would have been relatively obscure if the U.S. had not split off from Great Britain.