These logbooks record two voyages (to Corunna, Spain, 1789-1790, and to Oporto, Portugal, 1791, and returns to Philadelphia), with observations of differences in temperature between air and water, especially when passing the Gulf Stream or any land or banks.

This volume is from the voyage of the China Packet from Philadelphia to Canton, China, and return. The concluding statement reads: "One hundred & thirty days from Maccoa out of which time we had 30 Calm days, the longest passage I Ever had from China. With this Journal I have done and glad Am I."

From the Board of Trustees of the Estate of Stephen Girard, these films are the complete archive of one of the largest mercantile and financial operations in the United States of his day. The collection includes correpondence, with translations of letters in French (139 reels). It also includes bank records, account books, ledgers, cash books, and journals; papers, documents, and records of trading voyages (arranged by vessel and date); records of Girard's country house, "The Place"; records of real estate, rents, etc.; prices current of ports of the world. There is a card index of correspondents and ships (14 reels). Included is a card file, a unique and invaluable research tool, this is an index of names and places and alphabetical abstracts of Philadelphia newspaper items and advertisements for the period covering ca. 1718-1795. Roach made a systematic search through eighteenth-century newspapers and several other sources, for biographical and subject information on Philadelphians and Pennsylvanians of the period. It is primarily biographical , but subject headings, such as "The Barracks," "Blue Lion, Sign of the," "Custom House," are scattered throughout. The source of each entry is cited, and there are brief annotations. There is also a miscellaneous assortment of volumes that were received with the Kane family papers.

The most stellar member of a stellar family, Elisha Kent Kane was among the most popular American explorers of the mid-nineteenth century, a hero in the tragic mode. Born in Philadelphia in 1820, the son of John Kintzing Kane and Jane Duval Leiper, Kane studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before earning a commission as a naval surgeon. While in the Navy, Kane embarked on the succession of voyages to exotic locales that became the basis for his extraordinary fame. In 1843, he attended Caleb Cushing's first diplomatic mission to China as ship's physician, and subsequently traveled to the Philippines and Western Africa. Distinguishing himself in the Mexican War, Kane's greatest fame came from two expeditions to the arctic, aiming to locate the lost explorer, Sir John Franklin and to explore for evidence of the open polar sea. Kane died in 1857 while attempting to organize a third arctic voyage. Part of the Kane Family Collection, the Papers of Elisha Kent Kane contain a mix of personal and family correspondence with correspondence relating to all of Kane's explorations. Intelligent, articulate and very much a romantic, Kane's letters are expressive and passionate. The collection provides fine documentation of youth, his relationship with the Spiritualist Margaret Fox, and of course his travels to China and off the coast of Africa in 1846. Kane's two expeditions to the arctic are particularly well documented, with correspondence, notes, logbooks, diaries, and sketches, as well as Kane's post-expedition notes, writings, and lectures recounting his experiences.