[The following comprises the original Abstract, which will be significantly revised.] >>> These are notes, sketches, memoranda, etc., made while Lyman directed the geological survey of Japan, 1873-1879, with reports on petroleum resources, copper, coal, iron, and gold mines, oil, mineral springs, and other mineral resources of the Japanese archipelago. There are data on the Japanese, Chinese, Ainu, and French languages, and on Japanese manners and customs, wit and humor, gardening, painting, measurements, swords, etc. Notes and data on the life, travels, and publications of Bernard Varenius. Notes collected for Lyman's Vegetarian Diet and Dishes. Materials on the geology of New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and West Virginia; and on coal and iron fields in those states and elsewhere. Manuscripts of articles on instruments for boring wells, theodolites for mining and civil engineers, other surveying instruments, etc. >>> Of particular note is Lyman's period of study in Europe, where he attended the Imperial School of Mines in Paris, France (1859-1861), and the Royal Academy of Mines, Freiberg, Germany (1861-1862). There are about eleven notebooks for this period, written in English, French, and German, that contain: lecture notes, travel observations, comments on geology, mines and mining, railroads, with sketches of machinery, etc. There are a large number of letters (ca. 7,000 items), 1850-1917, from and to Lyman, on personal and business affairs.

After a brief career in the Congregational church, J. Peter Lesley (1819-1903) left the ministry in 1852 to work full-time as a geologist. Having gained experience in structural geology and stratigraphy with the First Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1836-1842), Lesley became an expert in the geology of coal, working for the Pennsylvania Railroad and other corporations and conducting some of the first systematic studies of the state's hydrocarbon resources. A long-time professor at the University of Pennsylvania, he was elected to the APS in 1856, serving variously as its librarian, secretary, and vice president, and he was selected as Director of the Second Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1875-1889). The Lesley Papers include letters to and from Peter Lesley and his wife, Susan on geology, coal and iron mining, abolition, educational reform, organized charity, and Unitarianism. The collection offers important insight into academic and applied geology in late 19th century Pennsylvania, the development of the coal and iron industries, as well as into the Lesleys' progressive social and intellectual milieu. It is divided into three series: Lesley's general correspondence, his correspondence with his brother Joseph, and microfilms of Lesley's research notes.