The Forgotten Expedition 1804-1805

At the same time that he charged Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the great Northwest President Thomas Jefferson commissioned William Dunbar and George Hunter to make a parallel journey through the southern unmapped regions of the Louisiana Purchase. From October 16 1804 to January 26 1805 Dunbar and Hunter both renowned scientists made their way through what is now northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas ascending the Ouachita River and investigating the natural curiosity called the hot springs. Though Hunter and Dunbar's journals have the same value and appeal as Lewis's theirs have long been out of print and have never been published in a single volume. Their daily accounts now appear together enhanced by a wealth of useful notes.The team of the Grand Expedition as it was optimistically named was the first to send its findings on the newly annexed territory to the president who received Dunbar and Hunter's detailed journals with pleasure. They include descriptions of flora and fauna geology weather landscapes and native peoples and European settlers as well as astronomical and navigational records that allowed the first accurate English maps of the region and its waterways to be produced. Their scientific experiments conducted at the hot springs may be among the first to discover a microscopic phenomena still under research today.