John Benbow, Jr., of Cowley Hall Mills, Middlesex, England, was an avid amateur beekeeper in the 1840s and 1850s. His "Bee Book" is a small (16mo) copiously illustrated treatise and journal of beekeeping. Divided into three parts -- "Other people's experiments," "Our own experiments," and an annual log (1846-1854) -- the book includes information on hive construction, seasonal management, the cleaning of hives, and other miscellaneous information culled both from printed sources and personal "experiments." The 44 pen and ink drawings include technical drawings of hives and beekeeping apparatus, along with humorous sketches of the activities of an "amateur apiarian."

This collection includes certificates issued primarily by railroad companies, banks, and industrial companies. There are some bonds issued by the City of Philadelphia. Also of interest are the scenic engravings of railroads on the certificates.

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.

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.

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, journals, financial records, writings, lectures, reproductions of sketches and documents which detail the lives of three generations of the Peale family. Material relating to the Peale Museum is also included.

A published first edition, 1837, of Jean Baptiste Gaspard Roux de Rochelle's History of the United States of America, in French, with a companion volume of original sketches used for the 96 engraved plates. Sketches are of American scenes and history, some apparently original, others after de Bry and other artists, all used in Roux de rochelle's book.

These are the original sketches used for the engravings in Day's 1843 publication, "Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania" (Philadelphia). They are finely detailed renderings of public and private structures and landscape throughout Pennsylvania. Accompanying these sketches are 150 pages of photocopied letters of Day, from originals at Yale University. These were used by Smith in his book.

Two sketchbooks by artist Rembrandt Peale. The first volume contains pencil sketches made on a trip on the Hudson River, October 1850, including views of the Palisades, Castle Garden, and the Catskill Mountains.

The approximately 3,700 color and black and white drawings were collected and drawn by John Lawrence LeConte, with two in the first volume are by Titian R. Peale, but most are likely by John Abbot. The previous description noted that there are some drawings by John Abbot, and that most were likely by John Lawrence Le Conte. However, John V. Calhoun has shown extensive evidence that most of the drawings are by John Abbot (John Abbot's "Lost" Drawings for John E. LeConte in the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 60(4), 2006, 211-217). The contents of the collection: 1. Coleoptera. 654 figures. 2. Diptera, Hemiptera, and Lepidoptera. 564 figures. 3. Coleoptera. 698 figures. 4. Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. 228 figures. 5. Coleoptera. 657 figures. 6. Hymenoptera and Diptera. 234 figures 7. Diptera. 304 figures. 8. Hemiptera, Araneina, Myripoda. 356 figures

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.