12" Wooden Ruler made U.S.A. of American-grown basswood. Humans have always traveled to unfamiliar places just because they wanted to learn more about them. We are a curious species! This ruler highlights some of the people who did just that and came back having learned a lot. Female explorers include Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), who first traveled to West Africa in 1893, and Alexandra David-Néel (1869-1968), who traveled to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners. The dates listed on this ruler are the years of each explorer’s birth and death, if known. The “head” image is of Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), who, together with his partner William Clark (1770-1838) traveled on foot and by river from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River and back from May 1804 to September 1806. Our illustration resembles a portrait made in 1807 or 1808 of Lewis by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), except that we have taken the liberty of adding the coonskin cap.