The volume is labelled on the spine ‘Balfour`s collections on the shires’, and is inscribed ‘Vol:3.’ in a seventeenth-century hand on folio 5.

The main text is preceded by a contents list (folio 5).

Almost all of the entries are undated, but appear to have been written at different times between about 1630 and about 1640, with later additions until at least 1650 (folio 94) and 1654 (folio 321). The entries record natural features such as rivers and glens, and noteworthy buildings both secular and religious. There are also some notes on Roman antiquities, a few genealogies of landed families, and several extracts from ‘Britannia’, and from works by Thomas Dempster. One of the entries, listing places in Angus, is a summary of ‘The abridgement or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles ...’, pages 92-93. Another is derived from `A short description of the Western Isles of Scotland ...` printed at the end of the same work: it is not clear whether it is a copy as it contains numerous small differences from the printed text and breaks off about three pages earlier.

Most of the entries are brief: at the end of each section are several blank leaves presumably intended for further entries. Some of these leaves were used by Sir Robert Sibbald (to whom the volume passed after Balfour`s death) who added a number of notes and accounts from contemporary sources (folios 144 verso-147, 182-194, 235-236, 283-298, 336-338), and who may have been responsible for pasting in a few papers from other sources (folios 350, 351 verso, 353). He subsequently gave the volume to Robert Wodrow (folio 3) (Wod.Fol.III) who amended the contents list and numbered the different sections. A leaf is torn out after folio 255; two leaves are torn out after folio 323.