Periodic Tables: A Delicious Country

In 1700, a young man named John Lawson left London and landed in Charleston, South Carolina, hoping to make a name for himself. For reasons unknown, he soon undertook a two-month journey through the still-mysterious Carolina backcountry. His travels yielded A New Voyage to Carolina in 1709, a book rich with observations about the region's environment and Indigenous people; historians and scientists today still refer to his descriptions of flora, fauna, inhabitants, and geography.

A little more than 300 years later, science and nature writer Scott Huler retraced Lawson's route by foot and canoe, which he recounts in his new book, A Delicious Country: Rediscovering the Carolinas along the Route of John Lawson's 1700 Expedition.