Long List of Supplies and Technology

The following list is only a sampling of the supplies taken west by the Corps of Discovery, but it should give a sense of what an undertaking the expedition was.

Mathematical Instruments:

• surveyor’s compass

• hand compass

• quadrants

• telescope

• thermometers

• 2 sextants

• set of plotting instruments

• chronometer (needed to calculate longitude)

Camp Supplies:

• 150 yards of cloth to be oiled and sewn into tents and sheets

• pliers

• chisels

• 30 steels for striking to make fire

• handsaws

• hatchets

• whetstones

• iron corn mill

• two dozen tablespoons

• mosquito curtains

• 10 1/2 pounds of fishing hooks and fishing lines

• 12 pounds of soap

• 193 pounds of "portable soup" (a thick paste concocted by boiling down beef, eggs and vegetables)

• three bushels of salt

• writing paper, ink and crayons

Presents for Indians:

• 12 dozen pocket mirrors

• 4,600 sewing needles

• 144 small scissors

• 10 pounds of sewing thread

• silk ribbons

• ivory combs

• handkerchiefs

• yards of bright-colored cloth

• 130 rolls of tobacco

• tomahawks that doubled as pipes

• 288 knives

• 8 brass kettles

• vermilion face paint

• 33 pounds of tiny beads of assorted colors

Clothing:

• 45 flannel shirts

• coats

• frocks

• shoes

• woolen pants

• blankets

• knapsacks

• stockings

Arms and Ammunition:

• 15 prototype Model 1803 muzzle-loading .54 caliber rifles

• knives

• 500 rifle flints

• 420 pounds of sheet lead for bullets

• 176 pounds of gunpowder packed in 52 lead canisters

• 1 long-barreled rifle that fired its bullet with compressed air, rather than by flint, spark and powder

Medicine and Medical Supplies:

• 50 dozen Dr. Rush’s patented "Rush’s pills"

• lancets

• forceps

• syringes

• tourniquets

• 1,300 doses of physic

• 1,100 hundred doses of emetic

• 3,500 doses of diaphoretic (sweat inducer)

• other drugs for blistering, salivation and increased kidney output

Traveling Library:

• Barton’s Elements of Botany

• Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz’s History of Louisiana

• Richard Kirwan’s Elements of Mineralogy

• A Practical Introduction to Spherics and Nautical Astronomy

• The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris

• a four-volume dictionary

• a two-volume edition of Linnaeus (the founder of the Latin classification of plants)

• tables for finding longitude and latitude

• map of the Great Bend of the Missouri River