NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Lewis and Clark, and River Navigation, Resent.
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Dec 4, 20:03 +0000
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Dec 4, 20:03 +0000
This is a resend of an earlier message, which Richard Pisko (and perhaps other) failed to receive. Apologies to those who get it for the second time. =================== Frank Reed said- >The Mississippi from Cairo north to St. Louis and beyond is entrenched. >That means its course is stable on a time scale of centuries. South of Cairo, >the river (before the USACE projects of the 20th century) used to whip back and >forth cutting new channels and cutting off meander bends at an astounding >rate. Similarly, there are stretches of the Missouri that are completely >stable on >a historical time scale and one large section (from Kansas City to the Dakota >border, IIRC) that meandered significantly during the past 200 years. That's useful information to me. It confirms my own findings that Lewis and Clark's astronomical positions generally correspond well with their descriptions of where they were, in relation to the settlements and landmarks along their route, North from Cairo toward St Louis. Mark Twain describes this section as rocky, and this is also clear from the L&C journals. I would expect the unstable meanders to occur in the flatter country. However, there must have been at least one instability in the St Louis-Cairo section. According to Gary Moulton, editor of the 13-vol L&C journals, the Mississippi has, since L&C's time, captured and taken over the lower stretch of the Kaskasia River, to form a large island. My Times Atlas of 1957 shows at Kaskaskia a large chunk of Illinois territory on the Missouri side of the river. I've seen a more recent map in which the river seems to be back where it was: perhaps due to revetment work in the interim. ======================= >3) There is a mapping coverage available at various places on the net >(including USGS) that shows details of most of the Missouri River in its >meandering >sections as of about 1890. There's next to nothing available before then. ======================= There exists useful mapping from the University of Missouri which covers all the campsites used by L&C, starting from Cairo, showing an interpretation of L&Cs track and observation points. It provides "historic hydrography" of the river, with a modern map superimposed (but not lat and long). I haven't made a study of this mapping, yet. The first map, of the Cairo junction, which is where they arrived on 14 Nov 1803, is at- http://lewisclark.geog.missouri.edu/campsites/1804/nov14camp.shtml (In that address, the "1804" looks wrong, but isn't. It's actually a contraction for the navigation season that each map series covers, in this case 1803-1804.) Clark drew a map of the river junction at Cairo, which is given in Moulton vol. 2 as fig.1, and I must say it differs significantly from the "historic hydrography" of that website map. ======================= Thanks to list members for useful pointers to web mapping. However, I'm one of those old-fashioned souls who greatly enjoys reading a well-printed map on a nice big fold-up sheet of paper. It's nearly as good as actually being there. I wonder how many others feel the same way. George. ================================================================ contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at 01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. ================================================================