I wish I had been with Lewis and Clark in November 1805 when they first glimpsed the object of all their labors, the reward of all their anxieties—the Pacific Ocean—and to have looked over William Clark’s shoulder as he scribbled in his logbook: “Ocean in view! O! the joy.”

They had explored a region more unknown to them than the moon is to us, and accomplished the feat without machines or electronics, but solely by the wills and sinews and spirits of mortal men.