Included are manuscripts, correspondence, awards, journals, diaries, notebooks, newspaper clippings, photographs and artwork, as well as working papers from various institutions, and oral history interviews.

The notebook contains observations made by De la Caille at the Cape and elsewhere; a list of expenses in connection with his observatory at St. Martin (Paris); and details of the mathematical basis for his calculations, including lists of formulae and trigonometrical proofs, used as an aide-memoire during his travels. There are calculations of some star coordinates, apparently made at the Cape, and, most important of all, a calculation of the difference in latitude between the Cape and Klipfontein for his determination of an arc of the meridian.