saw this on tv, WAY cool


Perry

Wonderful story.

Indeed!

friar

I've lived on the banks of the Potomac River for twenty years. Take my word for it, it's headwaters are not in the Cascades! A slip of the tongue of course as he meant the Columbia.

I've known about L&C's air rifle for a long time but I thought their's (like the rest of their arms) was made at the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry VA. (now W.VA.). Of course the guy does say "a gun like this" then of course there is his slip mentioned above and perhaps other errors in his story I didn't catch. Very interesting just the same!

This video is really making the Internet circuit, but it is interesting. I've received it about 4 times now.

Just a little follow up on Lewis' air gun. He had just left Pittsburgh in the keelboat headed for Wood River and decided (pre-arranged?) to stop on an island in the river for a little visit. This was presumably for a Masonic send off for the expedition. Lewis drug out his air gun and fired off a few rounds displaying the gun's virtues. One of the attendees asked Lewis if he could fire the weapon and 'Ol Merriweather handed it over. The gentlemen, who's name I've forgotten, accidently and immediately shot a woman standing about 40 or 50 yards away. It was a shot to the temple and a gushing head wound. She dropped like a sack of spuds off a wagon. Everyone was certain she was dead and rushed up to her. After a few moments she revived, apparently not too much worse for wear. Lewis took his gun, the crew, and jumped on the boat and headed downstream ASAP. He does record it in his journal, but several of the first published accounts of the trip left this little detail out. Moulton, of course, covers the incident in the excellent multi volume publication of 6 to 10 years ago.

Perhaps they were trying to determine the point blank effective range to armed and angry indians.

Ironically, I recently had signed up for a Netflix account, and the day before I got the air gun link via e-mail, I had watched a streaming National Geographic documentary on Netflix about Lewis & Clark's journey. It was an excellent show with great scenic views.

As a result of watching it, I quickly picked up on the erroneous statement in the air gun video when the narrator mentioned that the headwaters of the Potomac River were in the Cascade Mts.

Talk about a slip of the tongue that got through the editing process.