Ireland

Ireland

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Words

The last 2 books I have read have made it very obvious to me that, I no speak so good.
This revelation most recently came about while reading a letter, written by Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, to Thomas Jefferson.

You see, this whole expedition westward was Thomas Jefferson's idea, and after choosing Lewis to lead this shindig into the unknown, he wanted him to be as prepared as possible.
TJ sent Lewis to spend some time with a man named Andrew Ellicott.
All he was was America's leading astronomer and mathematician, so Lewis was sent to pick his brain.
There was no Google Earth or mapquest at that time, so reading the stars and moons and whatnot was a necessity if Lewis had any hopes of expediting off in the right direction.

Some time after Lewis's arrival at Mr. Ellicott's, he contacted Jefferson to let him know he had started his training and he gave him this update.
" I have commenced, under his direction, my observations to perfect myself in the use and application of the instruments." He found Ellicott to be "extremely friendly and attentive, and I am confident is disposed to render me every aid in his power: he thinks it will be necessary I should remain here 10 or 12 days."

If I was sending that letter, it would go like this.
"I'm here and we started the training. These gadgets are a bitch, but Ellicott seems like a good dude. See ya in about a week and a half."

See what I mean?

4 comments:

Alison said...

:-)

Sueann said...

The writing during those times was so eloquent. I have always enjoyed reading the civil war correspondence between loved ones. Always so beautiful!! And their penmanship skills put mine to shame as well!
Hugs
SueAnn

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

LOL... Roger that.

dcpeg said...

LOL!!

SueAnn is right, but it too way too much parchment for those verbose colonists to write very often, but they seemed to anyway. Poor trees . . .