3 September 1954

Dear Peter:

I enclose a bill for 3 pounds 8 shillings from Easibind Limited. Would you please pay it, keeping track of the expenditure, so that I may reimburse you later.

Everything is going well here. I have continued to work on collagen. It seems to me unlikely that the Huggins structure can be correct. I have made a model of it, using, however, the approximate amide groups (120(degree) angles), and the model tends to coil up in a roll, instead of stretching out into a helix with the proper pitch. Moreover, Huggins' model, like our original one, has two thirds of the groups cis, and Badger says that the Infrared spectra show that the groups are practically all trans.

My structure, when built with the refined models, did not come out quite right. However, it is close enough so that I think it is not yet eliminated, and I still favor it -- perhaps because everything else that seems to me to be reasonable has been eliminated.

We have a stone mason working around the house today. He has been working during the past week. He and his helper took up the bituminous pavement extending from the road near the garage to the stone pavement near the swimming pool - 80 feet in all - and have replaced it with stone. The first 30 feet of stone, nearest the garage, is laid in cement, so that it will not be necessary to try to grow grass between the slabs, whereas the remaining 50 feet is still to have grass between it. It looks very nice. Today he is beginning on the construction of a low stone wall along part of this walk, similar to that just north of the swimming pool.

On Monday I am flying to Chicago, and, in fact, taking the train then to Kalamazoo, three hours' ride from Chicago. I am spending Tuesday with the Upjohn Company, giving a talk for them on the abnormal hemoglobins, and then returning to Chicago that evening. On Thursday I am speaking at Northwestern University on modern concepts in chemistry, before a meeting of the Society for Promotion of Engineering Education, and then flying back home Thursday evening.

Work on the revision of COLLEGE CHEMISTRY continues to take up most of my time. I have finished the major jobs, and am now working on the chapters that require only a small amount of change.

Two days ago we moved the Studebaker, which has been standing in our garage for a couple of months, over to Mrs. Brown's garage. The battery had gone dead, so Izzy, who is free again, and had stayed with us for a couple of weeks (he now has a room somewhere else) came over with his car, and pulled it over to Mrs. Brown's place. It was quite a strain for his car. Then he had to stop while the car was about 20 feet from the garage door, and drive his car over to one side. Then Mama, Izzy, Mrs. Brown, Edward, and I all pushed the Studebaker up the hill. We had to stop just before getting the front end of it into the garage, because the slope increased suddenly there, and we were too tired to get it up. Mama ran back to get a board, about 6 inches wide and three feet long, that we had put behind the rear wheel, and started to roll it toward the garage. As she rolled it once, it fell back instead of forward, and landed on her big toe, which has in consequence been sore for several days. It is apparently only a bruise. She would have been better off to have shoes on.

We have had a month of rather cool weather, but the last few days have been very hot -- temperatures around 97(degree)• We are happy to have the pool to swim in.

Love from

Linus Pauling:W