Kansas Pacific Railway Survey
In 1867, Bell traveled to the United States to study the medical principles of homeopathy in St. Louis. In the United States, he joined an expedition undertaken by the Union Pacific Railroad Eastern Division (later Kansas Pacific Railway) to identify and map a southern route for a railroad connection between Kansas and California. Although Bell had no experience in photography, he was recommended for the post of expedition photographer by the expedition's geologist, John Lawrence LeConte. Accordingly, he undertook a two-week crash course in photography, purchased a camera and darkroom equipment, and joined the expedition in western Kansas, in a region near the Colorado state line that was the scene of active fighting between local Indians and United States military forces.
Soon after his arrival in Kansas, Bell saw and photographed the mutilated body of Sergeant Frederick Wyllyams, a U.S. soldier who had been killed by Indians. The gruesome image was published in Harper's Weekly, which railroad officials considered to be bad publicity and which caused them to become concerned that Bell intended to make money from sale of expedition photos. The railroad hired Alexander Gardner to be chief photographer for the survey expedition. However, the expedition split into two parties, and for a time Bell continued his photographic work as a member of the southern party that scouted a route through New Mexico and west along the 32nd parallel, while Gardner was part of the northern party that followed the 35th parallel. As an expedition member, Bell formed a friendship with the expedition's leader, General William J. Palmer, who was later to become his partner in several business ventures.
After about six months' work, Bell separated from the expedition at Camp Grant in southern Arizona, abandoning his equipment and negatives in order to travel on horseback to the coast of Mexico. From there, he traveled by ship to San Francisco and made an overland crossing of the United States to return to the east coast, where he obtained passage back to England.
He described his experience in the survey expedition in an 1869 book, New Tracks in North America. Published at a time when few Americans had seen the country west of the Mississippi River, the book sold well in both Great Britain and the United States. Meanwhile, the approximately 100 photographs that he left with expedition were of little use to the railroad, whose officials found that they were carelessly finished and that many of them had insufficient lighting. Only two of his images were included in the compilation that Alexander Gardner produced after the conclusion of the expedition. Some of his photographic work survives in collections, including those of the Colorado Historical Society.
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