These journals, kept at Madison's plantation, also contain notes on sowing and harvesting, and migration of birds. Some notes are in Dolley Madison's hand.

Featuring the work of at least ten different authors, this collection includes several, unrelated meteorological observations from the mid-18th Century to the early 19th Century. While the majority of these records depict weather patterns in Philadelphia, there are also descriptions for Delaware, New England, London, and South America among others.

This volume contains medical notes by Wistar, including observations on yellow fever and arguments to prove its foreign origin, facts relative to the progress of the fever in 1797, the infection and death of Colonel Van Emburgh, the infection of the crew of the ship "Deborah" and of the Durham boat (1802), an account of the diseases which afflicted the family of James Hammar in Montgomery County (Pa.), facts relating to the typhus fever of 1812-1813, case histories (1796-1803), temperature chart (1758-1759, 1760), and a thermometrical journal (1760-1765) kept by Charles Norris and copied by Wistar from notes in possession of Joseph Parker Norris.

Robert Maskell Patterson (1787-1854, APS 1809) was a professor of chemistry and natural philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania (1812-1828) and professor of natural philosophy at the University of Virginia (1828-1835). He was director of the U.S. Mint from 1835 to 1851. His father, Robert Patterson, was a revolutionary soldier, professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania (1779-1814), and director of the U.S. Mint (1805-1824).