Exploration and imperialism: 1805-1845: Westward the clash of empires -- The rediscovery of the Southwest -- Canada moves south -- The mountain men -- Something more than beaver -- The romantic horizon --
The Great Reconnaissance and manifest destiny: 1845-1860: When the eagle screamed: the explorer as diplomat in the final clash of imperial energies -- In search of an iron trail -- The Great Reconnaissance --
Exploration and the great surveys: 1860-1900: The new mountain men: California's geological survey
The West of Clarence King
The last stand of the army explorer
F. V. Hayden: Gilded Age explorer
John Wesley Powell: the explorer as reformer
Epilogue: Beyond the explorer's frontier.
Illustrations: The romantic horizon: The exotic West -- Some western versions of pastoral: the painter as mythmaker -- The romantic reconnaissance -- The sublime replaces the pastoral --
Illustrations: Scientific art and western exploration: The complexities of western landscape: a scientific view -- The varieties of natural history -- Limning the lost civilizations --
Illustrations: Images of progress: The camera becomes part of western exploration: The camera and the painter's eye
The underground landscape
From romanticism to realism in Indian portraiture
Maps: Expeditions and explorations: Imperial competition for the unexplored West -- Early American exploration in the far West -- The explorer's road to Santa Fe -- Opening the Southwest -- Canadian exploration in the Northwest -- The travels of Peter Skene Ogden -- The mountain men open the central Rockies -- Finding paths to the Pacific -- The emigrant trails and their explorers -- Fremont and early army explorations in the West -- Pacific railroad exploration -- Military explorers and the Great Reconnaissance -- Locating the transcontinental railroad, 1869 -- The military exploration of the Plateau Province, 1857-1860 -- The expeditions of Lieutenant G. K. Warren and Captain W. F. Raynolds, 1855-60 -- Military exploration in the Yellowstone, Big Horn, and Black Hills country, 1871-1875 -- Scene of the 40th Parallel Survey -- The expeditions of Lieutenant George M. Wheeler -- F. V. Hayden and his explorations, 1868-1872 -- The scene of Hayden's Colorado surveys -- The Colorado River and the Plateau Province of John Wesley Powell -- Country explored and surveyed by Powell, King, Hayden, and Wheeler Surveys / prepared ... by William Lacey --
Maps: Early maps: View of North America in Jefferson's time
Section of William Clark's manuscript map of the American West, 1810
Zebulon Pike's map of New Spain, based on Alexander von Humboldt's 1811 map
Stephen H. Long's map, 1821
Aaron Arrowsmith map of North America
James Bridger's map of the West
James Baker's map of the Yellowstone Region, circa 1856-1857
Fremont-Gibbs-Smith map of the West
Section of T. H. Jefferson's map of the Emigrant Road to San Francisco
Another section of T. H. Jefferson's map of the Emigrant Road showing the California gold region
Lieutenant A. W. Whipple's field map of the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers
Projected routes of the Pacific Railway survey, 1854
Lieutenant G. K. Warren's map of 1857
James Hall's geological map of the West
John B. Trask's map of the California gold fields
C. F. Hoffman's map of the San Francisco Bay region
California Geological Survey map of California and Nevada
Barlow and Heap's map of the Yellowstone Park region, 1871
The progress of the Wheeler surveys to 1876
A Wheeler topographical map with contour lines
Gorlinski's Land Office map of 1867
A Powell irrigation survey map, 1889
A modern quadrant map of the United States Geological Survey.