Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.
The Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon was made
by President Jefferson in 1803, for fifteen millions
of dollars. It included the present State of Louisi.
an'a and the entire country west of the Mississippi,
between the Spanish possessions on the south and
British America on the north, more than half of the
present area of the United States. We had value
received then; got more for our money than the recenrt purchase of Alaska. Comment is unnecessary.
Shortly after the purchase, in obedience to an
act of Congress, the President sent Lewis and
Clark, officers in the United States army, to explore
the vast and unknown region which he had added
to the now seemingly small republic. The principal
purpose of the expedition was, however, to ascertain thle possibility of a road across the continent,
the inspection of the pioneer movement for a Pacific railway. They outfitted at the then little
French town of St. Louis. Steadily, but slowly ascending the Missouri to its sources in the Rocky
Mountains, they with much difficulty crossed the
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