The author, writing in a conversational table-talk style, records impressions from a winter tour across the United States, combining practical travel advice with short essays on cities, institutions, and landscapes. He describes winter sea voyages, urban life in northern cities, political and social atmospheres in the capital and the postwar South, and visits to the Far West and California. Topics include the effects of slavery on Virginian countryside, battlefield tours, churches and education, agricultural and industrial museums and patent collections, and reflections on American character, progress, and public policy. The work mixes vivid local observation with comparative commentary aimed at English readers.