The Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford.

3rd August, 1954.

Please return to L. Pauling

Dear Pauling,

Thanks very much for writing. Mrs. Pauling's and your congratulations are very much appreciated.

We were interested to hear that two of your children are in Europe. Please tell them to come and see us when they are in Oxford next time.

I shall be attending the symposium of Temperature at the end of October in Washington. If I can get away for a bit longer, I might visit Pasadena as I would like to discuss the implications of my latest high pressure work with the geophysicists

Kindest regards,

Yours sincerely,

Francis Crick [actually Peter Pauling]

Professor Linus Pauling

Gates and Crellin Laboratories of Chemistry

California Institute of Technology

Pasadena 4, Calif.

August 4, 1954

Professor Raymond E. Kirk

Department of Chemistry

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn

99 Livingston Street

Brooklyn 1, New York

Dear Professor Kirk:

In answer to your letter of 30 July, I may say that I would be glad to review the article on valence that is to be written for your Encyclopedia.

I shall be in Pasadena most of the time during the coming months, and can take care of this matter whenever the article is ready.

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

5 August 1954

Professor F. J. Allen 118

E. Stadium Street

W. Lafayette, Indiana

Dear Fred:

I am very pleased that you are willing to work with me on the revision of my College Chemistry, and I am looking forward to receiving some of your recommendations.

I shall plan on having some of the new material to you later in August, when you return from Amherst.

Copies of the Table of Contents, as planned at the present, and of the introductory statements for the six parts into which I propose to divide the book have just been mailed to you. I believe that the letter containing these was sent to the Department of Chemistry at Purdue.

I am not planning to make very extensive changes in the present chapters, and in accordance with your suggestion, you might look them over in the book itself, and send me your suggestions about them:

7. Weight Relations in Chemical Reactions (the chapter numbers refer to the first edition).

8. The Properties of Gases

10. Ions, Ionic Valence, and Electrolysis. (I am introducing a brief discussion of valence, about one page, in an earlier chapter. Accordingly the introduction, the first page or two, of this chapter will be changed. Also, a part of Chapter 14 Faraday's Laws, is to be incorporated in this chapter.)

11. Covalence and Electronic Structure. (Probably this chapter should be revised somewhat; I shall appreciate having your suggestions.)

12. Oxidation-Reduction Reactions.

13. The Halogens

15. Water

16. The Properties of Solutions

17. Sulfur

18. Nitrogen

19. Chemical Equilibrium and the Rate of Chemical Reaction

20. Acids and Bases

21. Phosphorus, Arsenic, Antimony, and Bismuth

22. Solubility Product and Precipitation

23. Complex Ions

30. Biochemistry

32. Energy and Chemical Change

33. Nuclear Chemistry

Page Two Professor P. J. Allen 5 August 1954

With best regards to Mrs. Allen, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

6 August 1954

Dr. Seeley G. Mudd

1206 Pacific Mutual Building

Los Angeles, California

Dear Seeley:

I thank you very much for your letter of 5 August, and the enclosed check for $200.00, which I have turned over to the Y. M. C. A.

It was a pleasure to talk with you over the telephone on Tuesday.

I am leaving today for three days in Idylwild where I shall take part in a conference on the Anomalous Magnetization of Rocks. Some rocks are found to be magnetized in a direction opposed to that of the earth's magnetic field. The explanation of this fact is not known, and the conference is to be devoted largely to the discussion of this anomaly.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

August 7, 1954

Saturday Morning

Dear Mom,

Many thanks for your letter, I was very pleased to hear from you. I'm glad to hear that you got a new washer, as I remember your old one spilled all of its water on the floor on me when I was getting ready to come down here. I have been seeing Louise Palmer now and then; Linda has written her a couple of times and she has brought me the letters. Linda also wrote to the little boys, were they excited. I have been doing a lot of reading this summer; a friend of Linus', Ransom Arthur, who is staying here, has infected me with thwe [sic] reading bug. He has a lot of books about US Naval History, which are terribly interesting.

I hope that Elfriede tells me when she is coming so I can meet her. I like her very much, she was too, too kind to me. Don Sandbom stayed over night a few times before I left, with Elfriede's permission. I hope that that was alright. Also the night I left Dave Wailes, Adrienne, Mary-Ellen, and myself had a little barbeque before going to the airport, also with Elfriede's permission. Dave bought the steaks, so it was no expense to us other than charcoal. I hope that you don't mind, but it is so much cheaper than to go out to dinner, and also nicer. Dave had just gotten back from Frisco with his Parents the day before, so we thought that it would be a nice idea.

I never told Jim that he could stay here for more than three days, which I did with Anita's permissin. [sic] But as there are already 4 houseguests (me, Irma and Ray Hahn, and Ransom Arthur), Linus and Anita both feel that I should try to find some other place for Jim to stay. So we will see how it works out when he gets here (tomorrow). Also I don't know how long I can stand to live with Jim; he is a little too active and impatient for me to be around him for long amounts of time.

Well, must run. I am trying to catchup on my correspondence this morning. Say hello to Al and Jack for me, tell Jack that I will write to him soon.

Crel

5, Bent Place

Lensfield Road 10 August 54

Cambridge

Dear Mamma,

Thanks you for your very nice letters. We have been having a busy time here. Linda went to Paris with Martin Karplus and has moved in with the H.P. Robertson's. She will be there a week longer and then will go to the south with Marriete. I did not go for two reasons. I have no money and I can stay here and do a little work just as well. I would like to go; I would like very much to see Mariette and the south, but cannot. It is just as well. I think I probably shall not get my PhD until '56, but may try hard because I may be drafted next year. We are awaiting some new work by chemists. I think Linda is all right. I was very pleased to see her. She is a little batty, but not nearly as much so as I. Says she can bring back good American Coffee from Paris. My god. Oh well. A year here will do her good I am as yet unsure whether she should work or play. A year's reading would help her more than a year's English secretarial job. We have a flat. Linda likes it because it has a big kitchen, I do not really for 1. Land lady resident one floor up; 2. Share a bath room with ", 3. low ceilings and I have claustrophobia. 3. In basement (wetter). However it will be livable after I have worked on it a week. Linda should be here to paint it; I ought to crystallograph instead. It will do. Nice land lady. Excellent taste and very spry for 65 yrs old English woman. She might not like my idiosyncrasies. What the hell? Willie Fowler will be here next year. Might supply beer, which is expensive here. Robertson's come here at Christmas. Foolish we should go to Paris. Taken up silver collecting. Expensive. Very nice stuff. Library growing. It is strange and sad that I lost my reading habit. No time now and just out of the habit. Summer has been terrible. Wet. Rain. Saw Carl Price and L. Sheffield. Missed Paul MacCready at gliding contest. I am living in the Crick's house right now. Move Saturday. Bought a four foot wide bed. Probably buy another. Go to auctions Linda should go. Arthur Compton is in town. Have not spoken to him yet. Missed Bill Houston. I am glad Linda will be here. We shall enjoy it. She can learn potting, weaving and Italian. Also settle down into smoother life. Good American coffee my eye. One year probably is not enough. Still, it will help. I would like to visit you, but guess I had better wait a while.

Much love,

XXXOOO Peter

11 August 1954

The Editors

NATURE

MacMillen and Co., Ltd.

St. Martin's Street

London, W. C. 2., England

Gentlemen:

I return herewith the Letter on the Crystal Structure of Parabanic Acid, and the letter to you by E. H. Medlin.

Neither Dr. Davies nor Dr. Blum, whom you mention in your letter to me, is in Pasadena at the present. Dr. Davies has just left for England. After about a month he will be at the following address:

Dr. David R. Davies, c/o Research Department, Albright and Wilson, Ltd., Oldbury, Birmingham, England.

Dr. Blum is in the eastern United States. His address is the following:

Dr. J. J. Blum, Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda 14, Maryland, U. S. A.

It is my opinion that the Letter submitted by Mr. Medlin should not be published in Nature, for the following reasons.

The Letter deals with two subjects, the structure of parabanic acid, and the results of some investigations on an unidentified compound. The results reported on parabanic acid are not significantly different from those described in the Letter by Drs. Davies and Blum, which was published in Nature. In fact, Davies and Blum communicated the dimensions of the molecule of parabanic acid, and apparently Medlin has not carried his structure determination far enough to communicate these quantities. In any case, the fact that Medlin has obtained some results that are essentially the same as those of Davies and Blum in his investigation of parabanic acid is not justification for the publication of a Letter in Nature, although he might well submit a note on this point to a specialized journal, such as Acta Crystallographica.

[page 2]

The other subject mentioned in the Letter submitted by Medlin is the discussion of some results obtained on an unidentified compound. It is my opinion that these results should not be published. Presumably the investigator could by studying the chemical properties of the compound, identify the compound. Only after he has done this, would publication of his material on the compound be justified.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

Enc.

12 August 1954

Dr. Hermann Lehmann

Department of Pathology

St. Bartholomew's Hospital

London, E. C. 1

England

Dear Dr. Lehmann:

On receipt of your letter I prepared to get in touch with Dr. Itano, but then received a letter from him, in which he said that circumstances had made it necessary for him to abandon his trip. If there had been more time, it might well have been possible to arrange for a travel grant for him in this country, but it was too late when the situation became clear.

We are sorry to see Dr. Itano leave our Laboratory, where he had worked effectively for eight years.

I am interested to learn about the new hemoglobin that you have discovered, and also about your results on distribution of C in Africa.

We are looking forward to the arrival of Dr. Allison, from Oxford. He is scheduled to be here in a week or so.

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

17 August 1954

Dear Mamma,

Thank you for your letter, which I enjoy very much. Linda is off with Mariette Robertson. She will return after a while.

I moved into our flat Saturday. It is quite pleasant but needs some work. I must paper a wee bit and paint. I should like to buy a little refrigerator and a stove, but perhaps not. With Linda here, she can shop daily, but it is too time consuming for me. We have no larder.

I received the Draft Board stuff, thank you. I filled it in but cannot remember if I mailed it. Please ring the Selective Service System, Pasadena, ask for the clerk of board 91; you are ringing about Peter Jeffress Pauling, 4 91 31 57 you sent him the form due August 16^th (I think form C296) but has the Board received the completed form back from PJP? It they have, OK; if not get another form from them, and send it to me, please.

Could you send me two books, please?

Joseph Aronson The Encyclopedia of Furniture $4.00

Crown Publishers, 419 4^th Abe. N.Y. 15

Joseph Aronson The Book of Furniture and Decoration $4.00

Same Publisher

Who is Elfrieda?

Linda cannot begin to study until October, I think. I should register her in the school.

I would like to go see Mariette, but I expect I shall not be able to. I received a letter from Sid. He is in Washington. Making oodles of money.

I bought a fairly good diva bed at an auction $24 about. It will do.

Love and kisses

XXXOOO Peter

See note on Outside

Do Not Ring Draft Board Deferment Granted

18 August 1954

Mr. Peter Pauling

Peter House

Cambridge

England

Dear Peter:

Thanks for your letter of 10 August. Mama and I were glad to hear from you. We had a letter from Linda, with the Robertsons in Paris. I had wondered what you were doing.

I enclose a check for $125.50 with is to cover the expenditures of £44 6s. 7d. for books for me. Please keep on sending them.

Also, I enclose a check for $418.00. This is the $168.00 to take the place of the check that you returned to me, plus $250.00, representing 1 September and 1 October checks. I am planning to write checks only once every two months for each of you, but to make them for double the amount.

Now as to the P. Chem. books. I think that there is no need for you to do anything about the matter. I have just about decided not to try to write a textbook on physical chemistry, because I think that it would be too much work. I think that I could more profitably devote the same amount of effort to improving my freshman texts. I am working hard on the second edition of College Chemistry, and have rewritten several chapters. Today I am working on Chapter 12, which does not need very much change. Next year I am planning to get out a second edition -- third edition, rather -- of The Nature of the Chemical Bond. If you have any suggestions about how to revise it, please let me know. Perhaps you have picked up some ideas from someone about it, too, in addition to your own ideas.

Mama and I spent three days at Idylwild, about ten days ago. We were there to attend a conference on the magnetic properties of the earth. There was a man from geophysics in Oxford -- a bustling sort of fellow named [left blank]. Also, there was a man named Clegg, from London, who has been working with Blackett on the magnetic properties of rocks.

I am glad to learn that you are working on the 1.5 Å reflection in myoglobin. It would be fine if you could get some heather nettle atoms onto the heme groups, and make progress in determining signs. I am afraid that it is a very hard job, however.

I shall speak to Holmes about the rotating anode tubes.

I don't think that I am Jim Watson's supervisor for this Ph.D. He has never said anything to me about it. I remember that some months ago I received a form about supervisors, but no mention of Jim Watson. I didn't fill out the form. I think that I shall ask him, when he comes back.

I am rather doubtful about the wisdom of your binding your copies of Nature. I subscribed to Nature for a year, perhaps even longer, about the time that we were in Germany, 1927. I don't know what happened to those early Natures -- I think that I threw them away. I find it very convenient to have a lot of old journals around the house. Every once in a while I need to look something up, and I save a good bit of time by having them there. I expect that my journals are worth several thousand dollars.

You ask about the Indian collagen. A copy of the manuscript was sent to me, and I wrote saying that I was pretty doubtful about the structure. One of the hydrogen bonds is so badly bent as to be, I think, really unstable. I didn't go to the trouble of making a model.

I have sent the note about Linda, saying that I would support her, to her in Paris.

I remembered to add For. Mem. R.S.

I hope that you can keep Linda under control. She seems to me to be wanting to be doing something exciting all of the time. She gets bored by ordinary activities. For example, while we were driving across the country, even through the Rockies, for example, she had a tendency to curl up in the back seat and go to sleep, instead of looking at the scenery.

We have a fence around part of the yard now. It is a grape-stake fence, five feet high. It extends all along the north boundary, from the eastern corner to the driveway, where it makes a little bend south, about eight feet. Then there is a little curve on the opposite side of the driveway, and it heads down along the western boundary, as far as the first of the great big eucalyptus trees -- about a hundred thirty feet.

Jürg Waser and his wife, also his brother Peter, are coming to dinner with us tonight. I must be popping on home now.

I am not able to get into the Crellin Laboratory by the usual route, nor to park my car in the usual place. I park it now in the parking lot at the end of Holliston. There is a hole, about thirty feet deep, extending from the edge of the driveway at Crellin -- in fact, from the edge of the Laboratory, the driveway being gone -- nearly to Wilson. Some of the concrete has just been poured, a couple of days ago. Perhaps we shall have our new laboratory by September 1955.

I hadn't finished telling you about the fence, when I was interrupted by Holmes, to whom I gave your message about the rotating anode tube. He said that our rotating anode tube is well on its way toward completion. He is also working on a microfocus tube.

The fence was put in by Jack and a couple of other boys. They had never put in a fence before, and it wiggles about a good bit, with an amplitude of perhaps six inches. Perhaps we would have been wiser to have got a commercial friend to do the job. There are two new houses to the north of us, almost finished, and one to the south. The one to the south is about directly south of the old house, the rabbit house. It doesn't stick up very far, and so it isn't too bad.

Love from

[Linus Pauling]

19 August 1954

Mr. C. F. Shoop

1501 N. Roosevelt

Pasadena, California

Dear Mr. Shoop:

I feel that, as a member of the Parents' Committee of Reed College, I should write to you about your article "Reed College Named for Reeds," which appeared in the Pasadena Star-News on Sunday, August 15, 1954.

In this article you refer to Reed College as "now considered one of the better institutions of learning in the Northwest." In another article, on the Carmelite Story, which appeared on the same page you refer to Reed College as "one of the better type of schools for higher education in the Northwest."

These statements seem to me to be so cautious as to represent a real deviation from the truth. You could more correctly have described Reed College as "one of the most outstanding schools for higher education in the entire United States."

I shall now give you some of the evidence that justifies the description that I suggest for Reed College.

In 1952 the University of Chicago Press published the book "Origins of American Scientists," a study made under the direction of a committee of the faculty of Wesleyan University by R. H. Knapp and H. B. Goodrich. These investigators selected the eleven years 1924 to 1934 for their study. They considered graduates of different collages and universities in the United States during these eleven years, and counted up the number of the male graduates who had received a Ph.D. degree in science, or had made such an outstanding record as a scientist us to be listed with a star in American Men of Science.

In the list of fifty leading institution in the United States in the production of scientists during these years, Reed College stands first. During these years Reed College produced 131.8 outstanding scientists for every 1000 men graduated.

[page 2]

Second in the list was the California Institute of Technology, with 70.1 outstanding scientists per 1000 men graduated.

No other California school or northwestern school is in the top twenty institutions in the list. Pomona College is twenty-first.

The question might arise as to whether Reed College has deteriorated since the period 1924 to 1934. Evidence on this point is provided by another book, published in 1953 by the University of Chicago Press. This is "The Younger American Scholar: His Collegiate Origins," by R. H. Knapp and J. J. Greenbaum. In this book the authors report, the results of a study made of graduates during the six-year period 1946 to 1951. The number of graduates, both men and women together, obtaining the Ph.D. degree or some equivalent recognition of achievement in science, social science, or the humanities per 1000 graduates was taken as the criterion.

The topmost institution in the United States in this respect is Swarthmore College. Reed College stands second in the list. The California Institute of Technology is eighth, and Harvard University tenth. The only other western or northwestern institution in the first fifty institutions in the country is Pomona College, which is twenty-fourth.

It is worthy of mention that Reed College is one of only eight institutions in the entire United States to stand in the topmost twenty institutions in science, the topmost twenty in social science, and the topmost twenty in the humanities, separately, in this study.

I should like also to mention the record of Reed College in providing Rhodes Scholars. Frank Aydelotte, for many years American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, in his book "The American Rhodes Scholarships," lists the numbers of Rhodes scholars from different institutions during the first forty years of the Rhodes scholarship scheme. Reed College, with eleven Rhodes scholars during this period, may be compared with the University of California, with thirteen, Swarthmore, with thirteen, and Pomona College, with three.

I think that you will agree with me that you would have been justified in describing Reed College as one of the best institutions of higher learning in the United States.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

20 August 1954

Mr. Herbert Hoover, Jr.

915 Orland Road

San Marino, California

Dear Mr. Hoover:

I am writing to express to you my pleasure on learning of your appointment as Under Secretary of State by President Eisenhower. I wish also to congratulate you on this honor, and the opportunity for service to the Nation that it provides. I am especially pleased to know that an unusually able man, with sound understanding and high principles, will be occupying this important post in our national government.

Have you seen the big hole that has been dug just west of the Crellin Laboratory? The contractor is now pouring concrete for the fittings, and Professor Beadle and I are hopeful that the new Norman Church Laboratory of Chemical Biology will be available for occupancy in September 1955.

I enclose a reprint, not quite up to date, about some of our work on application of chemistry to problems of biology and medicine. It has pleased me very much that the discovery that diseases could be the result of abnormalities in the structure of molecules was made in the Gates and Crellin Laboratories of Chemistry of the California Institute of Technology.

With best regards, and my congratulations, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mf

Encl.

The Hemoglobin Molecule in Health and Disease AND Sickle Cell Anemia, a Molecular Disease (1333)

23 August 1954

Professor F. J. Allen

118 E. Stadium Street

West Lafayette, Indiana

Dear Fred:

I have finished rewriting Chapters 1 to 7, but they have not yet been typed, and so there will be a little delay in sending them to you.

I am accordingly sending Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 to you under separate cover. It is my opinion that these chapters are in essentially their final form, except for the changes that you suggest, and for the exercises at the ends of the chapters and the summaries - that is, the sections entitled Concepts, Facts, and Terms Introduced in This Chapter.

I have not made copies of the manuscript for these five chapters. I suggest that you indicate minor changes in pencil on the manuscripts themselves, and major changes on separate sheets of paper.

You may be troubled by lack of knowledge of the material that is now in the earlier chapters. Perhaps the copies of the earlier chapters will reach you before you have returned these five - I am hoping to begin sending them to you in a few days, and to have all of them, all seven, in your hands within about ten days.

At the present time I should tell you that in Chapter 3 there is a discussion like that of Chapter 3 of GENERAL CHEMISTRY on the electron and the nuclei of atoms, somewhat simplified over GENERAL CHEMISTRY. Chapter 4, on Elements, Elementary Substances, and Compounds, has not been changed a great deal. In Chapter 5, on The Chemical Elements and the Periodic Law, there is now a rather detailed discussion of the electronic structure of atoms, subshells of electrons, ionization potentials, and the energy level diagram from atoms.

In Chapter 6, on Hydrogen and Oxygen, there is a section on the naming of compounds, a section on oxidation and reduction, a section on valence, including valence bonds and brief mention of positive and negative valence, a section on ions, with a discussion of Arrhenius and his development of the theory of ionization, a section on acids, bases, and salts, approximately as at present, and a section on the ionization of strong electrolytes, and writing equations for reactions involving ions. Chapter 7 covers and alkali and alkaline-earth metals, boron, carbon, nitrogen, and the halogens.

Please send the chapters back to me by Air Express when you have finished with them. Keep a record of the amounts that you have to payout in shipping the manuscripts, and I shall reimburse you later.

I am especially anxious to know whether you think that some of the material that I have included in these chapters could be left out of the book. Our situation is, of course, that any teacher who wants to have a more extensive treatment of general chemistry can use the book GENERAL CHEMISTRY; but, on the other hand, I do not want to simplify COLLEGE CHEMISTRY to the extent of leaving important topics out.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

24 August 1954

Mr. Dexter M. Keezer, Vice-President

McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, Inc.

330 West 42nd Street

New York 36, N.Y.

In answer to the question in your letter of 11 August, I may say that it is my opinion that the cost of carrying on research in chemistry and of providing adequate training for the Ph.D. degree in chemistry is now approximately 250 percent of what it was 15 to 20 years ago.

For example, the salary paid to a young postdoctoral man 15 years ago, in our Division, was $1800 per year. The salary now paid is $4200 per year.

I may point out that the part of the expense that involves the salaries of professors has not increased two and one-half fold during this period. I judge that it has increased by about 50 percent only. However, the cost of apparatus in general has increased by about 150 percent, and there is another factor that must be taken into consideration. With the progress of science during the past 15 or 20 years it has become necessary to make use of far more extensive equipment than was necessary before. For example, we now have or propose soon to buy about a half dozen pieces of equipment that cost around $15,000 each - such as an electron microscope recording infrared spectrometer, analytical ultracentrifuge, and so on. All in all, I think that a department budget that was $200,000 fifteen years ago must be $500,000 now.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

25 August 1954

Prof. G. N. Ramachandran

University of Madras

Guindy -- Madras 25

India

Dear Professor Ramachandran

I thank you for sending me a copy of your paper, with Dr. Kartha, on the structure of the collagen group of proteins.

I have read it with great interest. I may say that I am not able to reach a definite conclusion about the probability that the structure is correct, but it seems to me to be unsatisfactory in some respects, in particular the bending of the hydrogen bonds.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

25 Aug 54

Dear Crellin,

Please put $4.00 in this and send it off to Rand T. I shall credit Daddy with the $4.00 so get it from him or Mamma.

Sun is shining. 3^rd since last summer (1953). I am working a little. Dreaming a good deal. I would like to go to Honolulu. The head gaskets are off. I think I shall stop R and T with this subscription which ends in October. It is not good enough. Motor Sport is better.

Where is my torch?

Damn it all.

Many thanks and much love,

Peter

30 August 1954

Professor F. J. Allen

118 E. Stadium Street

West Lafayette, Indiana

Dear Fred:

Thanks very much for your letter, and your suggestion about the new nomenclature.

I have decided to adopt the new nomenclature, at any rate in large part. I have never liked it very much, partially, I think, because I have not been clear about how the names were to be read. You will note on reading the enclosed material that I make a statement on this point; namely, that the name iron (II) chloride, for example, is to be read as iron two chloride. If you think that this is not the case, please let me know. I may say that I have a strong objection to writing of any sort when it is not clear how it should be read out loud. For example, I object to the use of a hyphen between two numbers whenever there is ambiguity about it; thus, sometimes people say "from 1907-14." Obviously they mean to say "from 1907 to 1914"; and I feel that the latter way of writing is the preferable one.

I may say that I do not like the part of the new nomenclature dealing with compounds such as potassium ferrocyanide. I do not like the name potassium hexacyanoferrate (II), or potassium cyanoferrate (II). I suppose that these are to be read in the same way, for example, as potassium cyanoferrate two.

I may say that I think that it would be better to set the oxidation number off by hyphens, rather than to put it in parentheses. Thus I would prefer potassium cyanoferrate-2, or even potassium cyanoferrate-II. I note that the English name iron is not used here, in the recommended nomenclature for these cyanide complexes. If the student is going to have to learn the name ferrate, why can he not learn ferro and ferri?

Note that I am putting the chapter on iron as Chapter 27, followed by that on copper, etc, and then that on chromium and manganese.

In a few days I shall send you copies of the first few chapters, which have been almost entirely rewritten.

I am very pleased that you should be helping me in revising COLLEGE CHEMISTRY.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

31 August 1954

Mr. Richard P. Zeldin

Handbook Editor

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

330 West 42nd Street

New York 36, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Zeldin:

I am glad to answer the questions in your letter of 25 August, about a possible new chemistry handbook.

1. A handbook of chemistry or of chemistry and physics fills a very useful purpose. I think that the two handbooks now available are pretty good. They could be improved, but I am not at all confident that another one, which you might get out, would be a significant improvement, just because editors and editorial boards are fallible.

2. I do not want to take time to prepare a list of defects or omissions in the present handbooks. I may say that I have rather often been disappointed when I attempted to look up some quantity in the two present handbooks. I have not kept any record, and I do not remember what it was that I was looking up; I think that I tried to find a table of ionization potentials of atoms, and was not successful, with either handbook. Also, I believe that I could not find anything about the effect of pressure on the solubilities of substances - at any rate, not the answer to the particular question that I was interested in.

3. I think that you ought to pick out a young man to be editor of your handbook. He should have a broad knowledge of chemistry, and should not be so deeply interested in research as not to be willing to devote himself to the editorial job. I suggest that you consider Dr. W. H. Eberhardt, a former student of mine. He is in Georgia Institute of Technology.

4. I should not want to take time to serve on the editorial advisory board, or be otherwise involved in the project.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W