This volume, written between May 3 and December 2, includes essays on mineralogy, the vegetable kingdom (such as botany and fruitification), and the animal kingdom (such as zoology, ornithology, and generation of animals).

Twice a refugee from the revolutionary violence in the French colony of Saint Domingue, John Thomas Carré became head of the Clermont Seminary in Philadelphia from 1804-1825, a select boarding school for boys. Carré's diary from 1807-1809 provides a basic chronology of his life at the Clermont Seminary, with a few comments on his students and their families. The entries are typically very brief and are confined to a relatively limited range of topics, including the weather, Carré's poor health, his visitors, and correspondents. There is also a biographical memoir by his granddaughter, Ann Virginia Sanderson Farquhar.