"The saga of the forty-niners--their adventures and ordeals, their courage and greed, their ingenuities, delusions, bonanzas and catastrophies--in California and on the way there"-- From the book jacket.

INCLUDES INDEX. "A JOHN L. HOCHMANN BOOK." "A REVISION AND EXTENSIVE ENLARGEMENT OF THE METROPOLITAN SEMINARS IN ART."

The ways West -- The gold country -- A few of the forty-niners -- Sunrise in a bottle -- The gilded summer -- Ho for California! -- Oh! Susanna -- The Argosy -- The easy way -- Reveille on the rivers -- The course of empire -- The unyielding land -- Magic lantern country -- Fire and ice -- Muster of strangers -- Twilight in Eden -- The morning after.