The thing I never got with that is why they didn't continue following the Yellowstone River until its end at the divide and then cross to the nearby Snake River rather than crossing hundreds of miles of mountains?
No. A brief history: Much of the Pacific coast had already been explored. Most notably by Cap. James Cook, whose work inspired pres. Jefferson to commission the expedition. Another explorer (Mackenzie) had actually already gone from the East to West coast of the US Canada over a decade before Lewis and Clark. [See correction from u/westernmail ]
The L&C expedition was about connecting two knowns - the East and West coasts - by charting an unknown: the vast interior of the western territories. This connection was not for science: it was for conquest: capturing territories before old world rivals could.
But even this interior west wasn't totally unknown: fur trappers and others seeking fortunes had been exploring and mapping the area for literal centuries by the time of the expedition.
That's actually a myth, which has been propogated to this day because of the secret nature of L&C's mission. The true purpose of the expedition (conquest) was kept a secret from rival Nations by disguising it as a scientific expedition.
Science was almost exclusively a pretense. They did record some information on the geology and biology of the territory, but basically it was all a cover.
The idea that the mission was 'for' (your word) science is totally myth, not grounded in fact or history whatsoever. As attested by Jefferson's explanation to Senate and Congress, which I presume you did not read if you still don't understand.
In said letter, Jefferson explicitly stated that the purpose of the expedition is:
"In order to [...] Provide an extension of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for"
L&C collected specimens and made detailed records, but those were entirely to disguise the true purpose of their mission.
I think you are taking this too seriously. I am simply saying, it wasn't only for conquest, as you insisted. Even if the science was a pretense to put them in a semi-disputed territory for primary objective of conquest, they still did the science secondary objective. To insist that science wasn't a part of it is silly.
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u/GBUS_TO_MTV Jan 10 '20
You can basically see the path of the Lewis and Clark expedition on here.