The Cassin diaries are contained in six volumes. The first, spanning 1865-66, documents his travel by steamer. Cassin records crossing the equator (7/30/1865), visiting a volcano at Cape Verde (7/25/1865), and arriving in Brazil. Enterprising researchers might research his course using the longitudes and latitudes he records throughout this volume.
 
The second volume picks up more than a year later and commits significant attention to the medical profession. The first entry voices concern about the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania (12/10/1868), and subsequent pages enclose copies of letters from 1869, including his committee appointments, especially Assistant Surgeon in the Navy (4/2/1869). Sequential entries begin in earnest on 5/6/1869, when Cassin recounts his travels aboard the brig Ohieflaua from the Chicago Harbor to Lake St. Clair.
 
Cassin's third and fourth volumes are less descriptive but remarkable for the extent of his travels. In his 1870 "New York" diary, Cassin notes another journey to Brazil in June, South China Sea in August, and Hong Kong and Shanghai in September. His 1870-71 diary dovetails with the latter, recording a trip to Rio de Janeiro (6/6/1870) and undated notes pertaining to a voyage to South Africa. Once again, Cassin captures many longitudes and latitudes.
 
The "Clayton's Octovo Diary 1872" is perhaps the richest from an ethnographic perspective. Cassin provides detailed accounts of visits to Key West (2/10/1872), Havana and Matanzas (between February and April 1872), and even a brief reflection on the act of journaling. "A diary is something like a resolve to call professionally on a dentist
 
you may keep it, but the chances are much in the favor of your putting it off," Cassin observes on 4/26/7182. "Diary writing is almost the stupidest thing that I know of, unless one can make a writing task in no other way." Between May and June 1872, he travels throughout the Caribbean, furnishing descriptions of the peoples and villages he encounters. Interested researchers will find a particularly evocative entry of Key West society women in a 6/21/1872 quotation below.
 
A Pocket Diary dated 1875, finds Cassin landlocked, maintaining a more traditional journal of meetings, calls, letters, and weather conditions. The volume opens in St. Louis where he has apparently purchased a home, and it is not until September that he begins to travel again. That fall he returns to Brazil (11/6) and visits Uruguay (12/1).

Serving as a U.S. Navy physician, Charles Luke Cassin traveled extensively, recording firsthand accounts of Brazil, Canada, South Africa, the South China Sea, and the Caribbean during the postbellum period. His six-volume journal, which spans 1865-1875, offers glimpses at those far flung locations and the various peoples who inhabited them. Cassin's journals ought to appeal to a wide range of researchers, including those interested in the history of seafaring, the West Indies, ethnography, and late-eighteenth-century medical practices.
 
The Cassin diaries are contained in six volumes. The first, spanning 1865-66, documents his travel by steamer. Cassin records crossing the equator (7/30/1865), visiting a volcano at Cape Verde (7/25/1865), and arriving in Brazil. Enterprising researchers might research his course using the longitudes and latitudes he records throughout this volume.
 
The second volume picks up more than a year later and commits significant attention to the medical profession. The first entry voices concern about the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania (12/10/1868), and subsequent pages enclose copies of letters from 1869, including his committee appointments, especially Assistant Surgeon in the Navy (4/2/1869). Sequential entries begin in earnest on 5/6/1869, when Cassin recounts his travels aboard the brig Ohieflaua from the Chicago Harbor to Lake St. Clair.
 
Cassin's third and fourth volumes are less descriptive but remarkable for the extent of his travels. In his 1870 "New York" diary, Cassin notes another journey to Brazil in June, South China Sea in August, and Hong Kong and Shanghai in September. His 1870-71 diary dovetails with the latter, recording a trip to Rio de Janeiro (6/6/1870) and undated notes pertaining to a voyage to South Africa. Once again, Cassin captures many longitudes and latitudes.
 
The "Clayton's Octovo Diary 1872" is perhaps the richest from an ethnographic perspective. Cassin provides detailed accounts of visits to Key West (2/10/1872), Havana and Matanzas (between February and April 1872), and even a brief reflection on the act of journaling. "A diary is something like a resolve to call professionally on a dentist
 
you may keep it, but the chances are much in the favor of your putting it off," Cassin observes on 4/26/7182. "Diary writing is almost the stupidest thing that I know of, unless one can make a writing task in no other way." Between May and June 1872, he travels throughout the Caribbean, furnishing descriptions of the peoples and villages he encounters. Interested researchers will find a particularly evocative entry of Key West society women in a 6/21/1872 quotation below.
 
A Pocket Diary dated 1875, finds Cassin landlocked, maintaining a more traditional journal of meetings, calls, letters, and weather conditions. The volume opens in St. Louis where he has apparently purchased a home, and it is not until September that he begins to travel again. That fall he returns to Brazil (11/6) and visits Uruguay (12/1).

The Elisha Kent Kane Papers and Logbooks include at least 50 heterogeneous notebooks, journals, and logs that may be loosely termed diaries and clustered into four main categories: Kane's arctic expeditions (containing six notebooks); his world travel (eight notebooks); his education, training, and medical practice (24 notebooks); and the various ship logs contained in the Kane Ship Log collection (12 notebooks). Although some of these records are difficult to interpret in isolation, when read together in these suggestive clusters, they will richly reward scholars interested in trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific travel, antebellum medicine, colonialism, and ethnography. Reference F. A. Parker's "Log of the U.S. Frigate Brandywine" (Kane Logbooks, No.7) and Samuel L. Breeze's "Journal of the U.S. Sloop of War Albany" (Kane Logbooks, No.8) for detailed illustrations of antebellum Rio de Janeiro, Macao, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Valparaiso, Veracruz, and the Yucatan.
 

Morley's early diaries provide intimate accounts of personal affairs, including his romantic relationships and education at Harvard University. In addition to documenting his budding relationship with Alice Williams, whom he would marry in 1908 and divorce in 1914, Morley writes at length about the planning of his first field trip to the Yucatan (1906-07). During that trip, he provides rich accounts of Havana (2/4/1907), Uxmal (2/15/1907), and his first excavation (8/19/1907).
 
Starting in 1912, his diary takes on a closer resemblance to a field notebook, with detailed accounts of his excavations in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Interspersed in those records are fascinating accounts of the World War I and World War II, including oblique references to Morley's espionage work. For example, on January 9, 1914 he writes of a "curious telegram warning" from Washington: "'Make no affiliations in the C.matter. This is a danger signal. Await further advices.' I cannot imagine what this can mean. Is it a warning against H.? I sent the following reply: 'Have made no affiliations whatever. Will make none. Will preserve absolute secrecy and keep free from all entanglements. My case is in your hands. Am awaiting further instructions.' Think I will hear by Monday."
 
As the war unfolded, Morley recorded its effects in both Central and South America, including President Woodrow Wilson's "destructive" policy in Mexico (2/13/1914), the geopolitical scramble for Guatemala, and the "key-stone of the arch between the Rio Grande and the canal" (12/8/1917). Later, at the outset of World War II, Morley notes Japanese encroachment on the Dutch East Indies (2/19/1941), and even the attack on Pearl Harbor, "a series of shots that literally were heard around the world" (12/29/1941).
 
In fact, war proves disruptive for Morley's work. A colleague, Dr. Moise La Fleur, is killed during a Mexican chicleros attack (5/17-19/1916), an incident from which Morley does not soon recover. Moreover his excavation of Chichen Itza is badly delayed until 4/28/1924.
 
Nevertheless, researchers interested in both the history of South America and the field of archaeology will be rewarded with meticulous descriptions of excavations conducted between the 1920s-1940s.

The 39 volumes of Sylvanus ("Vay") Griswold Morley diaries span 42 years of the first-half of the twentieth century, and provide textured accounts of Morley's personal affairs, archaeological expeditions in Central and South America, and developments of World War I and II in South America. Morley began keeping a journal while he was in school (1905) and continued maintaining it until 1946, a year before his death the year before his death (1947). Notably, all entries are typed, enabling researchers to quickly scan volumes for specific interests.
 
Morley's early diaries provide intimate accounts of personal affairs, including his romantic relationships and education at Harvard University. In addition to documenting his budding relationship with Alice Williams, whom he would marry in 1908 and divorce in 1914, Morley writes at length about the planning of his first field trip to the Yucatan (1906-07). During that trip, he provides rich accounts of Havana (2/4/1907), Uxmal (2/15/1907), and his first excavation (8/19/1907).
 
Starting in 1912, his diary takes on a closer resemblance to a field notebook, with detailed accounts of his excavations in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Interspersed in those records are fascinating accounts of the World War I and World War II, including oblique references to Morley's espionage work. For example, on January 9, 1914 he writes of a "curious telegram warning" from Washington: "'Make no affiliations in the C.matter. This is a danger signal. Await further advices.' I cannot imagine what this can mean. Is it a warning against H.? I sent the following reply: 'Have made no affiliations whatever. Will make none. Will preserve absolute secrecy and keep free from all entanglements. My case is in your hands. Am awaiting further instructions.' Think I will hear by Monday."
 
As the war unfolded, Morley recorded its effects in both Central and South America, including President Woodrow Wilson's "destructive" policy in Mexico (2/13/1914), the geopolitical scramble for Guatemala, and the "key-stone of the arch between the Rio Grande and the canal" (12/8/1917). Later, at the outset of World War II, Morley notes Japanese encroachment on the Dutch East Indies (2/19/1941), and even the attack on Pearl Harbor, "a series of shots that literally were heard around the world" (12/29/1941).
 
In fact, war proves disruptive for Morley's work. A colleague, Dr. Moise La Fleur, is killed during a Mexican chicleros attack (5/17-19/1916), an incident from which Morley does not soon recover. Moreover his excavation of Chichen Itza is badly delayed until 4/28/1924.
 
Nevertheless, researchers interested in both the history of South America and the field of archaeology will be rewarded with meticulous descriptions of excavations conducted between the 1920s-1940s.