4 volumes bound in 8. 3538 pp. Each of the 8 volumes with a separate dated page. With engraved frontispiece, folding table, and 304 copper-engraved plates, 2 of them folding. (8vo) 21.2x13 cm (8½x8"), period calf, rebacked with modern leather, raised bands, original leather spine labels employed.
Mid-eighteenth century encyclopedia significant for being, in all likelihood, the same or nearly the same edition that was taken by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their momentous voyage across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. Though only one of the actual books taken is known to have survived the journey (de Pratz's History of Louisiana), there was a list made of the small library, which included "a Hat Box containing the 4 vols. of the Deckinsery arts and sciences." One can imagine the value a dictionary such as this would have had to the expedition, with the numerous plates picturing flora and fauna of the world which would offer comparisons to the new discoveries made on the expedition. The plates are numbered I-CCCII, but numbers XXXIV, XXXV, and XXXVI are repeated, and there is no number CXL.
Donald Jackson notes verbal parallels between entries in the journals and definitions in this publication, particularly in the descriptions of the salmon and the ibex. The definition of the word "sense" was copied nearly verbation from theis dictionary. Owen issued a second edition in four volumes in 1863-64. The only other four-volume English dictionary of "arts and sciences" that might have been carried is the very large (44 cm. tall) folio of Chambers (Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences), but apart from its unweildy size, there seems to b e no direct correspondence between it and the journals.