title: Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado
author: Douglas J. Preston
description: The Old West's last glimmers flicker through this piercingly beautiful adventure, an unforgettable saga in which Preston, astride his horse Popeye, traverses the desert and mountain wilderness of Arizona and New Mexico, retracing the trailblazing 1540-1541 expedition of Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Accompanied by a photographer friend, former Natural History columnist Preston (Dinosaurs in the Attic ) talks with Navahos, Zunis, Acomas, ranchers, cowboys, prospectors and rattlesnake hunters. His text shuttles back and forth in time, from the complex prehistoric civilization of the Anasazi Indians to the U.S. war against Apache chief Geronimo, whose followers were deported as prisoners of war to Florida, to the cautionary tale of a once-lush New Mexico valley (larger than Connecticut) reduced to desert by cattle herding and the clear-cutting of timber. In place of the mythical winning of the West, Preston unfolds a harrowing tale of loss. History Book Club alternate. <br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: **FIFTEENTH THOUSAND.**
  
  * * *
  
  ** THE **
  
  ** EXPLORING EXPEDITION  
  **
  
  ** TO THE **
  
  ** ROCKY MOUNTAINS,  
  OREGON AND CALIFORNIA, **
  
  ** BY BREVET COL. J.C. FREMONT. **
  
  ** TO WHICH IS ADDED A DESCRIPTION OF THE **
  
  ** PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA. **
  
  ** WITH RECENT NOTICES OF **
  
  ** THE GOLD REGION **
  
  ** FROM THE LATEST AND MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES. **
  
    
    
  
  **1852**
  
  * * *
  
  * * *
  
  **PREFACE.**
  
  No work has appeared from the American press within the past few years better
  calculated to interest the community at large than Colonel J.C. Fremont's
  Narrative of his Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon, and
  North California, undertaken by the orders of the United States government.
  
  Eminently qualified for the task assigned him, Colonel Fremont entered upon
  his duties with alacrity, and has embodied in the following pages the results
  of his observations. The country thus explored is daily making deeper and more
  abiding impressions upon the minds of the people, and in