8 x 10 7/8 in. albumen photograph on 16 x 20 in. "War Department" cardstock mount (spotting to mount). No. 3 of 26 photographs from Explorations and Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, Expedition of 1872 - Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Commanding. Titled and numbered on mount recto, with Bell's imprint lower left. 

View of the Canyon of Kanab from the landmark Wheeler surveys. William Bell joined his brother-in-law's daguerreotype studio in Philadelphia in 1848 before opening his own studio on Chestnut Street in 1852. In 1862, he enlisted in the 1st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers and fought in the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. After the war, he joined the Army Medical Museum as its chief photographer in 1865. He replaced Timothy H. O'Sullivan on George Wheeler's survey expedition in 1872, capturing stereographic landscapes of unexplored areas along the Colorado River basin.