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st. This interest increased after his return home, and when he became President he secured an appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars from Congress for the purpose of defraying the expense of an exploration of the vast region to the northwest of the Mississippi. This appropriation was made in February, 1803. The area of Louisiana was more than a million square miles, and greater than that of the whole United States as it then existed. It was purchased from France for the sum of fifteen million dollars, the treaty to that effect between the two governments being ratified in the summer of the year named. By this single transaction the dominion of the United States was extended across the whole continent of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The exploring party that entered this enormous region was under the command of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It will be noted that both of these officers held the same rank. Military law does not permit the anomaly of equal authority, and Clark was really the junior, but in point of fact the rights of the two were the same. They were so considerate toward each other that no difference ever arose, and "the actual command and conduct of the expedition devolved upon each in exactly equal degree." Lewis belonged to an old Virginia family and early displayed enterprise, boldness and discretion. He won the promotion to a captaincy at the age of twenty-two, and was barely thirty years of age when called to take part in this memorable exploration. Clark was also a native of Virginia, but his childhood had been spent in Kentucky, whither his parents removed. He was a younger brother of the more famous General George Rogers Clark, but for whom the Allegheny Mountains instead of the Mississippi would have been our western boundary after the close of the Revolution. He was about thirty-three years old when he joined Lewis. He possessed excellent qualities, and it may be said that no two persons could have been selected who were better fitted to lead the score and a half of men across the continent. On July 5, 1803, Captain Lewis left Washington, hoping to gather his men and materials in time to reach La Charrette, the upper white settlement on the Missouri, and there spend the winter. The inevitable delays followed, and the Spanish commandant of the province, not having received official notice of the transfer, would not allow the expedition to pass throu
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