Hey Windrush, go to infoplease.com and type in canning in the search and then click on canning (encyclopidia) and it gives a history of canning. kathyjo

I was reading about the Lewis & Clark expedition to OR some years ago, & mostly what I remember (other than Sacajawea carrying a baby most of the way) was about their "canned soup". Since lead was easily malleable, containers were made of flattened sheets of it, food enclosed in it, & a top was melted/sort of soldered on. They carried these cans with them in case they totally ran out of food. Fortunately, they didn't eat much from these cans, or they probably all would have died of lead poisoning!

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