July 16, 1951
Sir Lawrence Bragg
Cavendish Laboratory
Cambridge
England
Dear Bragg:
I thank you for your letter of 13 June. Dunitz had told me that he had withdrawn from
candidacy fro the I.C.I. Fellowship after I had written my letter to you.
I am very pleased to learn that you feel that our α-keratin structure carries conviction.
Both Dr. Corey and I have developed much confidence in it, and also in the collagen
structure, which seems to me to be the most extraordinary one of all. Dr. Hughes has
not written me that you and Perutz have got some additional experimental support,
by photographing the 1.5A basal plane reflection. I am very pleased to know that this
reflection is given by proteins with the α-keratin structure, and also by hemoglobin.
Ever since our discover of the 3.7-resudue-per-turn helix, nearly two years ago, we
had been making calculations on it, with use of the published data for hemoglobin,
but we hesitated to communicate the results until the comparison with fibrous proteins
had been carried out, and found to be satisfactory.
I am looking forward to hearing more about your hemoglobin work in September. Kendrew
is scheduled to be in New York, I understand, and also we hope that he will visit
us in Pasadena.
Our family is all together now, except for our second son, Peter, who is working at
the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. Our eldest son, Linus, is with us,
along with his wife and two babies. Crellin is now 14 years old. He thinks that there
would be nothing finer than to come to visit you and Lady Bragg again.
Ava Helen and I had a very pleasant experience last month, when we spent two weeks
in Hawaii. It is really a most pleasant place.
With best regards to Lady Bragg, I am
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling
