Prime source material, readable reporting of the day-by-day observations, preoccupations, and ideas of an Arizonan in 1870. . . . Marion, editor of the Arizona Miner in Prescott, details the inspection trip on which he accompanied General Stoneman and others. His little book, widely read in Arizona at the time, remains, says Donald Powell, one of the best and least known such accounts from this period. . . . The book is notable for its descriptions of the frontier forts, the mesquite forests of southern Arizona valleys, and the adobe town of Tucson with its population of 3,000. . . ....