Subseries A. General Ship Design and Building contains construction plans, instructions for performing different calculations and measurements, comparisons to English shipbuilding, and manuscripts. The first manuscript in the subseries, which says "Pour la Construction des Vaisseaux" on the cover, is partly in the hand of Duhamel, and is probably the first chapter of Elemens de l'Architecture Navale. The next manuscript, "Idee de la [construction]," gives the methods of construction used at the end of the seventeenth century into the beginning of the eighteenth century. According to Clément Denoy, this manuscript was written between 1715 and 1735; the material and its corresponding drawings were incorporated into Architecture Navale which was printed in 1752. The text and plates have additions and changes in the hand of Duhamel.