These journeys of botanical exploration include information regarding plants, and his remarks on the condition of remote settlements he visited. The journals cover the territory from Hudson's Bay to the Indian River in Florida, and from the Bahama Islands to the banks of the Mississippi.

This journal was found among the papers of Benjamin Smith Barton, who was Pursh's patron, after his death in 1817. For provenance of manuscript see ms. notes in printed edition by Thomas P. James - 581.974:P97.

This set of journals, copied legibly but with many excisions into the last volume, 914 Sm61, is from a tour of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, and England, to inspect technological improvements in manufacturing and mining. There are accounts of visits with C.D. Ebeling, Friedrich Klopstock, J.A.J. Reimarus, Anders Sparmann, and Karl P. Thunberg. Smith bequeathed this journal to the American Philosophical Society with the request that it be published if found to contain information "useful to the manufactories of my country."