These papers include letters from Admiral C.R. Moorson, correspondence with James Ross and Edward Sabine concerning polar exploration, and a map of the stars near the North Pole.

This typed autobiography, covering the period from Barus' birth to 1930, includes reports concerning the United States Geological Survey, the United States Weather Bureau, and Barus' work in cloud condensation.

This includes communications or correspondence from such figures as A.D. Bache, Amos Bonsall, John F. Frazer, and M. F. Maury. There are reports by committees, such as those on agriculture, botany, horticulture, and meteorology.

These papers related to Benjamin Franklin and the American Philosophical Society, and include correspondence among Benjamin Franklin, William Franklin, Jonathan Williams, Sr., and Jonathan Williams, Jr. Also included is Williams' journal of a trip through England with Benjamin Franklin, Jan Ingenhousz, and John Canton (1771), memoranda and essays by Williams on trade, meteorology, and sugar refining, and notes and drawings.

This collection includes letters to and from Americans (including South America and the West Indies) and letters about America selected from the Society's manuscripts (Classified Papers, Letter Books, Letters and Papers, Royal Society Letters, Miscellaneous Correspondence, and other official groups) and from collections of private papers (Sir Charles Blagden, William Buckland, John Canton, Sir John F. W. Herschel, Sir Edward Sabine, and others). The documents range in time and character from John Winthrop, Jr., "A Description of the Artifice & Making of Tarr & Pitch in New England" (1662), to letters from Sir Thomas Edward Thorne to his wife describing the American West, where he was on a surveying party in the 1880s.