Missouri they gave the names of Jefferson,
Gallatin, and Madison. A detachment was then left in charge of the
boats, and the remainder, riding the horses they had captured and tamed,
made their way across the mountains. They discovered the two streams
which bear their names, and traced the Columbia to its outlet in the
Pacific Ocean.

The expedition was absent for two years, and its report on returning
added much to our geographical knowledge of the section. They were the
first party of white men to cross the continent north of Mexico. Captain
Lewis was appointed governor of Missouri Territory in 1806, and was
acting as such when he committed suicide in 1809. Captain Clark was also
governor of Missouri Territory, and afterward superintendent of Indian
affairs. He died in St. Louis in 1838.

THE BURR AND HAMILTON DUEL.

No one read the wicked character of Aaron Burr more unerringly than
Alexander Hamilton. He saw that he was ready to ruin his country for the
sake of gratifying an insatiate ambition. Hamilton was always outspoken
in expressing his opinions; and the hostility between the two became so
bitter that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Although the latter had
had a son killed through the barbarous code within the preceding year,
he was foolish enough to accept the challenge, and the duel was fought
at Weehawken, New Jersey, July 12, 1804. Hamilton fired in the air, but
Burr aimed straight for his antagonist and inflicted a wound from which
he died the next day.

Although Burr presided in the Senate after the duel, the whole country
was shocked by the occurrence, and his friends fell away from him. In
1804, when Jefferson was re-elected to the presidency, George Clinton
took the place of Burr as Vice-President. Burr then engaged in a plot to
form a new empire in the southwest, the precise nature of which is
uncertain. He found a few to join with him, but it came to naught, and
in 1807 he was tried at Richmond, Virginia, on the charge of treason,
but acquitted. He spent some years in wandering over Europe, and then
returned to resume the practice of law in New York. He died in obscurity
and poverty on Staten Island in 1836.

[Illustration: DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM NAVIGATION FOLLOWING FULTON'S
DISCOVERY.]

A notable event of Jefferson's administrations was the first voyage of a
steamboat up the Hudson. This was the _Clermont_, the invention of
Robert Fulton, who was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, i