geological exploration of the North American West

The USA

From the earliest times of European colonization the West fascinated those who had settled or who had been born along the Atlantic seaboard. The scientific exploration of the North American continent was begun by the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–6). Sent by President Jefferson to find a north-west passage across the continent by travelling via the great Missouri and Columbia rivers, they were instructed to report on the ‘soil and face of the country’, and this they very effectively did. They were well equipped and well suited for the task and reached the Pacific ocean before returning to St Louis and Washington. They established the topographic outlines of the continental interior and showed that such exploration could be very successful. Several other government-sponsored expeditions soon followed. Striking west from the Missouri up the Platte River, Z. M. Pike in 1806–7 crossed the Great Plains to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and in 1819–20 S. H. Long followed the Arkansas River west to the ‘Great American Desert’. By this time there were many individual explorers and trappers, the ‘mountain men’, penetrating beyond the central plains into the Rockies, the Great Basin, and the western ranges to the Pacific. Jedediah Smith, Joseph T. Walker, and Captain Benjamin de Bonneville, to name only the most famous, were widely travelled and observant, covering ground from the present Canadian border south to the Mojave Desert and the Colorado River. Although not professional geologists, these remarkable men produced valuable accounts of the terrain, its wildlife, and natives.

Growing population and the quest for land had prompted westward development to the edge of the great plains; now many private parties set out for the west coast, which was known to be habitable. In 1841 there began a series of expeditions by the US Corps of Topographical Engineers to survey the intervening lands. They were led west from the Rockies by Lieutenant John C. Fremont and from the Pacific inland by Captain Charles Wilkes. They successfully managed their expeditions as scientific teams and professional surveyors. The extent, variety, and mineral wealth of the mountainous lands west of the Rockies was becoming apparent.

With the expansion westwards, the 1850s saw railway route-finding surveys striking out from Minnesota, Iowa, and Arkansas. These afforded tremendous opportunities for the gathering of geological information during the course of engineering work, and the mid-century gold rushes to California focused public attention to the extent that several states west of the Mississippi River set up their own geological surveys. National surveys had begun as early as 1860 and now took in enormous swathes of country. The names of the leaders, Hayden, King, Powell, and Wheeler, are famous in the geology of the west. Professional geologists were among them, and Clarence King became the first Director of the US Geological Survey in 1879. Mining operations followed on prospecting by increasing numbers of geologically trained personel. By 1870 the unique volcanic nature of the ground around the Yellowstone River was recognized and the movement to establish the first US National Park began.

Canada

Canada is the world's second largest country, with an area of 9 971 500 km², most of it being north of the 49th parallel of latitude and extending to the high Arctic. It is vast, cold, and empty, and about half of it lies on the Canadian (Precambrian) Shield. The Prairies and the Rockies are continuations of the American plains and Cordilleras. Early explorers travelled mostly by canoe. The open water season was limited to less than six months. Minerals were generally less of an attraction than furs to early explorers, and settlements in Hudson's Bay were the starting points for many explorations. Samuel Hearne's journey to the northern ocean (1769–72) from Hudson's Bay crossed the Coppermine country. John Richardson in 1821 travelled from the north coast southwards noting the rocks and minerals en route. Others looked for a land-based north-west passage or for the lost Franklin expedition in the 1850s, but the geology of these parts was scarcely touched upon. J. B. Tyrrell (1858–1957) was a widely travelled geologist who saw much of the Precambrian terrain between the mountains and Hudson's Bay in the nineteenth century.

During Tyrell's time the Geological Survey of Canada began systematic examination of the country west of the Great Lakes and Hudson's Bay. Robert Bell's Geological Survey of Canada party mapped a total of 2735 km in track surveys north and north-west of Lake Winnipeg in 1879. Between the two world wars aircraft were first employed to supply field parties, and in 1955 helicopters were much used in the first comprehensive mapping project in the Arctic Islands.

D. L. Dineley

Bibliography

Goetzmann, W. H. (1966) Exploration and empire: the explorer and scientist in the winning of the American West. Knopf, New York.
Zaslow, M. (1975) Reading the rocks—the story of the Geological Survey of Canada 1842–1972. Macmillan Company of Canada and Canada Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ottawa.