The Wendell Beckwith fonds consists of the correspondence and scientific notes of Wendell King Beckwith, scientist. Principal series include: incoming and outgoing correspondence with relatives, visitors to his cabin at Whitewater Lake, Ontario, and those interested in his research and lifestyle; sketches, plans and drawings of some of his inventions and buildings; audio tapes; and bound and unbound scientific notes. Beckwith established his own dating system, abandoning the normal calendar and it seems he began numbering days from the point he moved permanently to Whitewater Lake. This allows for some order to be made of the records though, unfortunately, most of his scientific material is undated. Dates indicated below are approximate except where confirmed by Beckwith. To some extent the dates of documents can be determined by the handwriting as he seemed to have developed a shake in his later years not present at the beginning. This, however, is unreliable. The records were gathered up in haste, years after Beckwith's sudden death in 1980, and placed in boxes apparently in no particular order. This order has been retained with a few exceptions. His papers appear to contain both rough and finished notes. The former may be nothing more than a few calculations scrawled on a page while the latter are often neatly handwritten with full colour diagrams. He often refers in his rough notes to a diagram or set of figures as having been "plated". This probably means that the rough notes have been rewritten, with colour plates, in a more finished form, possibly indicating a manuscript in preparation (though there is no indication of intended publication).
