These notebooks contain lectures or reports on lectures, with corresponding watercolor and pen-and-ink drawings. There are volumes on geology (Great Britain and elsewhere), natural history, mechanics (sketches of levers, valves, and weighing machines), and steam engines (sketches of mechanics of boilers).

This correspondence is with Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Edgar Fahs Smith, and Thomas Sovereign Gates, about undergraduate days at Harvard College, his interest in Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wistar Institute. The papers include a list of publications, biographical data, papers on Robert G. LeConte and Daniel Moreau Barringer, a certificate of membership in the Governor Thomas Dudley Family Association, and 25 drawings of crystals and 35 original sketches made to accompany his Harvard thesis, "The Nature and Origin of Deposits of Phosphate of Lime."

The collection is a miscellaneous group of letters of mainly British scientists and physicians, purchased as an existing autograph collection. There are a few American signatures. The letters are primarily from the nineteenth century and focus on medical and geological topics, but also there are some earlier and later dates. In addition to the letters are anatomical drawings of surgery, sketches of bones, and one geological notebook.