Manuscript format

[Mark Hagerman <mhagerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yesterday, I watched a rerun of a PBS documentary on the Lewis & Clark
expedition (exploring the Louisiana Purchase territory); I was struck by
the similarity between one of their journal pages and some of the VM
pages (folios?).

The center of the page was a rendering of some bird, possibly a prairie
hen; the written material flowed around the image. I suppose this has
already been proposed, but...is it possible the VM is, or contains as
one section, a journal of this sort?

In particular, the botanical drawings section might comprise the
illustrations and attached notes of someone wandering around gathering
and recording such information. If so, would the sequence of the
drawings suggest the route the explorer took, and thus constrain the
probable identities of the plants, themselves, as well as the content of
the written material?

Mark Hagerman