Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

The following lists is only a sampling of the supplies taken west by the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, but should give a sense of what an undertaking the expedition was.

Camp Supplies
*150 yards of cloth
*Pliers
*Chisels
*30 steels for striking to make fire
*Handsaws
*Hatchets
*Whetstones
*Iron corn mill
*Two dozen table spoons
*Mosquito curtains
*10½ pounds of fishing hooks and line
*1½ pounds of soap
*193 pounds of "portable soup" thick paste concocted by boiling beef, eggs and vegetables.
*Three bushels of salt
*Writing paper and crayons

Traveling Library
*Bartons Elements of Botany
*Antione Simon Le Page Du Pratz History of Louisiana
*Richard Kirwan's Elements of Mineralogy
*A Practice Introduction to Spherics and Nautical Astronomy
*The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Emphemeris
*Tables for finding longitude and latitude
*Map of the Great Bend of the Missouri River

Arms and Ammunition
*15 prototype Model 1803 muzzel-loading .54 caliber rifles
*Knives
*500 rifle flints
*420 pounds of sheet lead for bullets
*176 pounds of gunpowder packed in 52 lead canisters
*1 long barreled rifle that fired bullets with compressed air, rather than gunpowder.

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