Kept during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, this diary notes distances covered and a draft of suggestions for routes for the fur trade.

This volume includes a journal of a campaign in Hungary (1737), and a diary (1738-1739) written in German.

Volume one includes an account of a voyage from England to St. Petersburg and of a journey from thence by Moscow through Poland to meet the Russian army. Plates consist chiefly of plans of battle fields. Volume one contains also List of expenses in the German language. A short index to various articles that are not in the volume. Project de commerce entre l'Angleterre et la Russie. Oraison funebre prononcé a St. Petersbourg le 10 Mars, 1725 a l'occasion de la lort de Pierre le Grand...par M. Theoplane... Volume two includes a section entitled "Literæ processus ssmi domini nostri Clementis--Papæ XII."

Included in this volume are short treatises on military topics, such as fortification and geometry, and military discipline; an account of campaigns (1689-1697) with the Royal Regiment of Foot in Ireland fighting the Williamite War between King James II and King William III, an account of campaigns under Prince Eugene of Savoy, with lists of troops; a section entitled "Un traittes touchant les conquètes quon pouroit faire en Amerique sur la maison de Bourbon au cas que la querre devienne generale et qui seules peuvent retablir lequilibre de l'Europe;" and lists of imperial regiments. Volume describes campaigns that took place during the successive reign of William of Orange, Queen Anne, George I and George II. British officers of note are John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford and John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.

The collection contains information on Fox family speculation in western lands, two manuscript maps from the 1790's and 1830's depicting the family's holdings in northwestern Pennsylvania, and a photograph album from the 1890's documenting Chestnutwold, the Fox estate adjacent to Andalusia. Chief correspondents are Samuel and George Fox.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were explorers. This collection contains the manuscript journals kept by Lewis and Clark on their travels to the source of the Missouri River and across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. There are interlineations throughout by Nicholas Biddle, who published his narrative "History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814).

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.