in 1820 a Major in the Us army went exploring the great Plaines of the Mid West in search of science and natural wildlife to write and his expedition is often under studies compared to the more famous Lewis and Clark expedition. A book called From Pittsburg To The Rocky Mountains" is an accumulation of the diaries written my the major and the encounters with native Americans and wildlife in 1819-1820 and in this book one captures the wild prairies that are now called fly by country by so many of the coastal elites.
The amount of interesting discoveries and encounters this American officer and his men made are too numerous to mention and basically if you are a die hard book worm on the beginnings and expansion of the United States then full knowledge of Major Long's expedition and its impact is a key component and study requirement of this trek. Long and his men trekked from the Mississippi to the Rockys and the harrowing position of his men who recalled countless times.
This book is hard to put down as even minute observations and encounters gives the reader a vivid imagination of what was being witnessed for the first time through Western eyes in moving about the massive landmass that is North America some three hundred years after the first ocean born landings from Europe and early settlement of the Americas by Europeans. They were witnessing man of the landscapes and natural habitats that Indians have seen for thousands of years and the tremendous beauty and grandeur of the area was sketched and illustrated by many members of the Long expedition. 
the magnificence of the land that Major Long descried ushered an intense interest for more exploration and westward movement by Whites any of whom saw the opportunities to exploit the land through exploration and lay claim to acreage of lands that they could get for pennies on the dollar for eventual profit of produce on the market. 
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