Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

plant collecting and fieldwork in South America medicinal, culinary, or other traditional uses of plants chromosomes and plant classification early herbals and botanical illustrations botanical institutions exchanging plants, seeds, and specimens microscopy and photomicrography in botanical research How did botanists and gardeners introduce plants from one region to another? grafting, budding, and propagation of tropical fruit crops

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

← Back to results

Page 103 · DO #4170 · 182_Goodspeed_Bx1FF8_r

Collection
Thomas Harper Goodspeed (1887–1966) papers
Item/Folder
Chardon–Coppinger, 1932–1958
Digital Object
DO #4170, page 103
Collection-level dates
1923–1963
Open PDF at page 103 ↗

Page transcription

December 1, 1947

Dr. Lincoln Constance
Gray Herbarium
Harvard University
Cambridge 38
Massachusetts

Dear Lincoln:

Dr. Wheeler tells me that you want to be brought up to date on our cytotoxic reaction to the Nicotiana situation. I am, therefore, sending you some of the reprints not yet distributed all of which bear upon such reaction.

Some years ago I bought a few books of considerable importance in connection with my interest in the floras of the west coast of South America and their distribution. Now I find that I cannot afford to keep all of them and I am about to offer at least the following for sale.

In particular I have Molina "Saggio sulla Storia Naturale del Chili, Bologna 1782" in original binding, condition good. Also Gay 8 volumes of botany, bound in cloth, plus the Atlas (botany), hand colored. The latter has been somewhat damaged by water stain on the right hand edge of most pages. However, the stain does not extend to the drawings. The binding was broken so that I have removed all the sheets and mounted each one under a mat of thin cardboard the size of herbarium species sheets, backed with the same material, and assembled them all in a portfolio. Actually, I should think that it might be of some advantage to be able to remove particular sheets for study or, perhaps, actually to incorporate the sheets in an herbarium. The Atlas is complete except for four sheets which have been photostated in white on black from the uncolored edition. Also the two volumes of Gay's Agricultura (one bound and one paper) which contain a certain amount of botanical information.

In addition I have Molina's "Saggio sulla Storia Civile del Chili, Bologna, 1787" which should be of interest to historians, etc., and a number of things of less value such as Hohow's Juan Fernandez flora and F. Phillipi's 1881 "Catalogus Plantarum Vascularium Chilensium" and a 1695 Matthiole, Dioscorides.

Possibly someone in your group there might know approximately what the Molina and Gay should be worth. A Chilean friend paid $300 (U.S.) for a good copy of Gay's Atlas (botany) hand colored and has sent it for sale to this country where he claims that second hand catalogues list it at from $500 to