This edition includes 10 illustrations. It is difficult to imagine that a little more than 200 years ago, much of this country had yet to be explored, let alone settled. The United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and thanks to the courageousness and resourcefulness of adventurers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who created maps and wrote detailed observations about their journey westward, a youthful America was able to establish its presence in the previously unchartered territory beyond the Mississippi River. Their vast trek, now immortalized in The Journals of Lewis and Clark, has made them two of the most recognizable names in history