This collection consists of scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, letters, notes, and printed matter compiled by Charles Greene Rockwood, relating to earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanos, and unusual astronomical occurrences. Included are four large scrapbooks of letters and newspaper clippings about earthquakes around the world, from 1872-1907, four other scrapbooks of clippings and notes on the Princeton Expedition to Denver in 1878 for the solar eclipse, the transits of Venus of 1874 and 1882, the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in the same year, and related scientific topics. There is also correspondence of William Morris Davis and E. A. Hill about the Philadelphia earthquake of Aug. 10, 1884, and a manuscript of a paper by Rockwood on "Krakatoa" read before a science club in 1890. There are letters to Rockwood spread throughout the collection.

In addition, there are three scrapbooks, 1870-1892, of newspaper clippings, notes, lists, and letters on earthquakes and volcanos compiled by John M. Batchelder (1811-1892), a civil engineer and scientific inventor. There scrapbooks were given to Charles Greene Rockwood in 1895 by Isabel Batchelder.

There are also 33 photographs (10" x 13") of the Charleston, S.C., earthquake of August 31, 1886. This set was given to Rockwood by the U.S. Geological Survey in recognition of his assistance in planning for the investigation of the quake. All are mounted on boards and captioned by hand