Lewis and Clark did succeed in finding new information about the flora and fauna in the west which gave Americans the knowledge they needed to move west.
Lewis and Clark's Journals
Jefferson asked Lewis and Clark to write down the “growth and vegetable productions…mineral productions of any kind” and the “dates at which particular plants put forth or lose their flower, or leaf” (Jefferson)
- They found plants that they could be eaten and used as medicine.
- They recorded all of the information they found in journals that they kept with them on the expedition.
- Jefferson also wanted Lewis and Clark to record the “times of appearance of particular birds reptiles, or insects” (Jefferson).
- Lewis and Clark reported back to Thomas Jefferson that fur trade could be sustained because there were so many animals and there were rivers that could transport the furs to the markets in America (Ambrose 397).
- This helps American Expansion because Americans can now move west knowing what plants could be used for medicine, what animals can be used as food, and what type of land there is.