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 mineralogist and chemist associated with the University of Pennsylvania (1822-1828), William H. Keating was a central figure in the scientific community in Philadelphia during the 1820s and 1830s. Active in the American Philosophical Society and Academy of Natural Sciences, and a founding member of the Franklin Institute, Keating was official geologist on Stephen Harriman Long's expedition to the Great Lakes in 1823 and spent three years in the late 1820s surveying the mineral resources of Mexico. The William H. Keating notebooks include three cash books (daybooks of cash expenditures, 1830-1839) and a book containing surveys of Keating lands in Potter County, most undertaken by Silas McCarty for William's father John Keating (1801-1818). The surveys associated with John Keating are an interesting record of land investment and speculation in the northern tier of Pennsylvania. William Keating's meticulous cash books provide a detailed record of his domestic expenses, philanthropic involvements (donations to the Catholic Church, the Prison Society), his reading (newspapers and books are listed individually), socializing (theatre tickets, Assembly fees), and a variety of miscellaneous expenditures ranging from purchase of a lithograph of Dugald Stewart to a table lamp from C. Cornelius. His accounts also include lists of servant's wages and wages for washerwomen.

Containing over 4 linear feet of letters and documents, the Franklin-Bache Papers comprises the second largest collection of letters and documents relating to Benjamin Franklin in the APS Library. Although the scope of the collection is broad, including materials from the time of Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia to his death, the heart of the collection documents the period of Franklin's ministry in France (1776-1785) and his diplomatic efforts to win financial and military support for the revolutionary cause, as well as less intensive coverage of his ministry in England before the Revolution. Franklin's correspondence with American and French officials, financiers (personal and otherwise), and savants provides tantalizing details on the social context of Franklin's ministry in France, his intellectual life, and his growing celebrity. Much of the correspondence documents the efforts to convince French officials early in the war to support the American cause, but there is valuable material relating to the peace negotiations as well. The collection is equally rich in personal correspondence, including a rich set of letters from Mary Stevenson Hewson, Georgiana Shipley, Catherine Ray Greene, Jane Mecom, Deborah Franklin, and a number of Franklin's other relatives. The collection is arranged chronologically.

After receiving his PhB at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1858, Alfred P. Rockwell continued his studies at the Museum of Practical Geology in London and the Bergakademie Freiberg, focused largely on mining engineering and coal geology. After service in the Civil War, he held positions at Yale and MIT before leaving academia in 1873 to pursue other opportunities. He later served as president of the Eastern Rail Road and Treasurer of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, a textile firm in New Hampshire. The small collection of the papers of Alfred P. Rockwell document his interest in coal geology during the period of his postgraduate study at the Museum of Practical Geology and the Bergakademie, 1858-1859. Although the correspondence is slight, the collection includes a suite of notes on collieries, coal mining technology, and the economics of coal. Of particular note in the collection are the eight notebooks on mining engineering (some containing sketches), including two volumes of notes on John Percy's lectures at the Museum of Practical Geology, 1858, three volumes kept during his stay at the Bergakademie Freiberg, including one on a course on metallurgy taught by Bernhard von Cotta, 1858-1859, and one of an industrial tour through Germany and Belgium (June 1859). The other volumes include two on collieries in northern England, and one including of production records for the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, 1879-1886.

Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the American Philosophical Society was the first learned society in the United States. For over 250 years, the Society has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Society fulfilled the role of a national academy of science, national library and museum, and even patent office. Early members of the Society included Thomas Jefferson, David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush, Stephen Peter Du Ponceau, George Washington, and many other figures prominent in American history. The Archives of the American Philosophical Society consists of 192.25 linear feet of material, organized into thirteen record groups dating back to 1743. The Society's archives extensively documents not only the organization's historical development but also its role in American history and the history of science and technology.

The Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin prepared by Isaac Minis Hays for the bicentennial of Franklin's birth in 1906 provides access to the largest portion of the Franklin Papers at the APS. The items were originally bound into volumes in roughly chronological order, with letters to Franklin preceding those from Franklin and at the end of the collection, Franklin's letters owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Each manuscript is still identified by Hays' reference numbers, which include a roman numeral refering to the original volume followed by an arabic number to identify the folio. The electronic version of the finding aid replicates Hays' calendar, including the introductory material and item-level descriptions. It has been updated to reflect corrections in the metadata, corrections of personal names, dates, and description.