y to geographical and astronomical science. Looking back
to the history only of the half century since the declaration of our
independence, and observing the generous emulation with which the
Governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia have devoted the
genius, the intelligence, the treasures of their respective nations to
the common improvement of the species in these branches of science, is
it not incumbent upon us to inquire whether we are not bound by
obligations of a high and honorable character to contribute our portion
of energy and exertion to the common stock? The voyages of discovery
prosecuted in the course of that time at the expense of those nations
have not only redounded to their glory, but to the improvement of human
knowledge. We have been partakers of that improvement and owe for it a
sacred debt, not only of gratitude, but of equal or proportional
exertion in the same common cause. Of the cost of these undertakings, if
the mere expenditures of outfit, equipment, and completion of the
expeditions were to be considered the only charges, it would be unworthy
of a great and generous nation to take a second thought. One hundred
expeditions of circumnavigation like those of Cook and La Perouse would
not burden the exchequer of the nation fitting them out so much as the
ways and means of defraying a single campaign in war. But if we take
into the account the lives of those benefactors of mankind of which
their services in the cause of their species were the purchase, how
shall the cost of those heroic enterprises be estimated, and what
compensation can be made to them or to their countries for them? Is it
not by bearing them in affectionate remembrance? Is it not still more by
imitating their example--by enabling countrymen of our own to pursue the
same career and to hazard their lives in the same cause?

In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of internal
improvements upon a view thus enlarged it is not my design to recommend
the equipment of an expedition for circumnavigating the globe for
purposes of scientific research and inquiry. We have objects of useful
investigation nearer home, and to which our cares may be more
beneficially applied. The interior of our own territories has yet been
very imperfectly explored. Our coasts along many degrees of latitude
upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean, though much frequented by our
spirited commercial navigators, have been barely visited by our pub