Related to the Dupaix expeditions of 1806, four loose notebooks with 23 ink and pencil sketches of Mexican ruins and hieroglyphics. Fragmented text, in Spanish, with images of construction and decoration on stonework, pottery and buildings of various native ruins of the Yucatan. The APS manuscript sketch file has an inventory list of the images.

In 1839-1840, the ichthyologist Richard Parnell left London for a collecting expedition to Jamaica and a tour of museum collections in the United States. An authority on both fishes and grasses, Parnell published two noted works as a young man, his Prize Essay on the Natural and Economical History of the Fishes Marine, Fluviatile, and Lacustrine, of the River District of the Firth of Forth (Edinburgh: Neill and Co., 1838) and The Grasses of Britain, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1842-1845). He appears, however, to have abandoned publication in 1845, although he continued collecting for many years. The notebook kept by Richard Parnell during his voyage to the West Indies and United States in 1839-1840 contains little narrative, but dozens of pencil and watercolor sketches of the marine life that absorbed his interest, primarily fishes. Most sketches are accompanied by brief notes on the anatomy of the fish, sometimes with close-ups of fin structures, air bladders, or the digestive tract and stomach. Although collecting localities are seldom recorded, the majority of specimens seem to have been collected in Jamaica, with at least a few observed in vitro at the New York Museum.

A merchant and member of the Society of Friends, Pim Nevins (1756-1833) lived most of his life in the English midlands. Recorded in Pigot's Directory of 1834 as a member of the gentry resident in Hunslet Lane, Leeds, Nevins was a woollen cloth manufacturer, finisher, and merchant whose operations were located at Larchfield Mill, near Huddersfield. During a voyage to visit Friends' meetings in the United States in 1802-1803, Pim Nevins kept a journal to record his thoughts and experiences. In presenting a copy of his diary to his children, he wrote: "some parts [of the diary] wch. being by way of memorandum to assist my memory will of course be no ways interesting to you; other parts being fill'd with the effusions of my own thoughts, will I fear be dry to you unless your minds should in some measure be dip'd into the like state with mine when influencing my pen; some other parts may entertain you." The journal includes a mixture of description of the cities, towns and landscape through which Nevins passed and accounts of his visits with Friends in New York city, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Alexandria, Bethlehem, Pa., Easton, Pa., the Pocono Mountains, northern New Jersey, New Brunswick, N.J., and Trenton, N.J. It also includes a delicate watercolor drawing of the Delaware Water Gap.

The Sketches of a Tour of the Lakes, of the character & customs of the Chippeway Indians & of incidents connected with the treaty of Fond du Lac... to which is super added a vocabulary of the Algic, or Chippeway language... is a record of a journey undertaken by Thomas L. McKenney and Lewis Cass, from Washington, D.C., to Fond du Lac, Wisc., to negotiate a treaty with the Chippewa and other Indians. McKenney, the Superindenant of Indian Affairs, includes an account of travel on the Great Lakes, and more memorably, a description of the "character" and customs of the Chippewa Indians, an account of the treaty of Fond du Lac, and a vocabulary of the Algic or Chippewa language. The manuscript, a fair copy of the original sent to a London publisher, is illustrated throughout with watercolor sketches of scenes and persons. It was originally published in Baltimore in 1827.

The first fifteen volumes of these "Notes of Travel" are Lea's account of his trips to Europe during 1832 and 1852-1853. He met with naturalists, scientists, and did much sightseeing in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. He records in detail visits and discussions with scientists, and makes sketches of many of the places he saw, particularly the Rhine River. The sixteenth volume is a memorandum book, 1853, containing accounts and expenses while in Europe.

This diary records the travels of Loammi Baldwin in the Netherlands (then including Belgium), England, and France, with detailed observations and careful pen-and-ink sketches of canals and canal machinery.

A collection of business and personal papers of three generations of the prominent Philadelphia Jewish family from 1750-1974. Business records include trade and land transactions (some in Yiddish) of the Gratz brothers, Barnard and Michael (1750-1804) with the business continued by Michael's sons: Simon, Hyman, Joseph, Jacob, and Benjamin (1791-1861). Personal correspondence are primarily letters to Rebecca Gratz from her sisters Rachel and Sarah (1795-1867) with later correspondence to Rachel's children: Horace and Sara Moses (1832-1879). Contains a small group of French letters related to Napoleon III, collected by family member Miriam Fox, and some heirloom artifacts.

A physician, natural historian, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) was one of the central figures in Philadelphia's early national scientific establishment. Having received his medical training in European universities, Barton was appointed Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, lecturing on botany, materia medica, natural history. A prolific author, he established his reputation as one of the nation's preeminent botanists through his botanical text book The Elements of Botany (1803), but his contribtions to zoology, ethnology, and medicine were equally noteworthy. Barton's monograph on the "fascinating faculty" of the rattlesnake and his efforts in historical linguistics (New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, 1798) were widely read, and his Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (1804-1809) was one of the nation's first medical journals and an important outlet for natural historical research. The Barton Papers offer a comprehensive view of the professional work of Benjamin Smith Barton from the time of his return to the United States in 1789 until his death. The collection is divided into five series: Correspondence, Subject Files, Bound Volumes, Graphic Materials, and Printing Plates. The collection includes a particularly valuable series of botanical, medical, and natural historical drawings collected by Barton for research, reference, and publication. Among the many artists represented are William Bartram, Frederick Pursh, Pierre Turpin, and Benjamin Henry Latrobe.