Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 1984
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 1984, pp. 70.
Abstract
Revised editions of previously existing works of scholarship are not normally very exciting. They may include some new discoveries and some new interpretations and, by virtue of the benefits of hindsight, be marginally better than their predecessors. Therefore, anyone who may wish to dismiss this new version of the atlas of the Lewis and Clark journals as a "mere" re-edition of the earlier version edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites had better be advised: this new atlas is a great deal more than just are-editing of the Thwaites atlas. And it is very exciting indeed. The new Moulton atlas varies from the Thwaites version in three fundamental ways. First, Moulton has included nearly three times as many maps as did Thwaites. Second, the new atlas includes a clean and precise text (where the Thwaites atlas did not) which fully describes the maps in the volume, corrects errors of fact and interpretation from earlier works on Lewis and Clark cartography, and presents a chronological history of the map-gathering and mapmaking integral to the exploratory process. Third, the physical format of the new volume is much more useable than that of Thwaites, with maps printed at full facsimile size wherever possible, with no awkward fold-out formats, and with an organization and sequencing which carries the reader along to the Pacific and back with Lewis and Clark much more easily than did the Thwaites atlas.
The Moulton atlas consists of a preface outlining the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a lengthy introduction with accompanying footnotes, a listing of the maps presented in the 70 volume with descriptive material on the originals (including information on size, coloring, authorship, area covered, and present location of the manuscript or printed map from which the present atlas plates were made), and finally organized into ten sections which are both chronologically and geographically logical-the maps themselves. Both the preface and the introduction are well written; the latter in particular will serve for years to come as the definitive work on the cartography of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The listing or calendar of maps is well-conceived and is particularly helpful to the scholar. But it is in the maps themselves where the real and essential value of the Moulton atlas resides. They are, to put it succinctly, beautifully arranged and organized with a clarity of reproduction that would be difficult to match in a more costly book. It is an atlas to be used. Those interested in the Lewis and Clark expedition in particular and western history in general can look forward to the completion of the Journals series which will, if the excellence of the Atlas is any indication, be a milestone as important in its own way as was the great exploration of Lewis and Clark.
Comments
Copyright 1984 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln