The volume contains many Highland tales which Campbell has taken down in English in note-form. There are only one or two he has written in Gaelic.

Campbell has illustrated the journal with a few watercolour sketches of Scottish Scenes (folios 10-12, 85, 87 verso, 117 verso, 158 verso-159, 166 verso, 169 verso, 283) and some miscellaneous insertions have been made throughout the volume:

(i) A printed pamphlet ‘On Prehistoric Remains in the Neighbourhood of the Crinan Canal, Argyllshire’ by Reverend R J Mapleton (1870) (folio 1).

(ii) Some correspondence of Campbell from June-August 1870 relating to the collection of Gaelic material, including a letter of John Dewar enclosing a Gaelic tale (folios 14-35).

(iii) Loosely inserted is an essay, ‘The Story of a Gaelic text upon which many people have enlarged’ by John Francis Campbell, dated 25 February 1871, dealing with the Ossianic Controversy (folio 37).

(iv) Printed pamphlet ‘On Scientific Method in the Interpretation of Popular Myths, with special reference to Greek Mythology’ by Professor J S Blackie (1870) (folio 224).

(v) Pamphlet ‘On Current British Mythology and Oral Traditions’ by John Francis Campbell (1870), with some related correspondence, September-October 1870.

Several press-cuttings have been pasted in, mostly relating to Gaelic literature (folios 234 verso, 235 verso, 268 verso, 269 verso, 281 verso); also two photographs of Campbell, 1870 (folios 46 verso, 223 verso), and a list of the manuscripts of Donald MacNicol, Minister of Lismore, undated (folio 278).