May 27, 1937

Dr. Paul Emmett

Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory

Washington, D.C.

Dear Paul:

I have heard a word of mouth rumor that you have been made head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Host Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and I wish to offer my heartiest congratulations not only to you but also to Hopkins, which could not have got a better man. In case that I haven't heard correctly regarding the nature of the position, I would be glad also to be set right.

I have been intending for many months to write to you about my ungracious behavior while in Washington last year. After I had rented a car and taken Ava Helen off for a ride in Virginia, she began a program designed to convince me that that was the wrong thing for me to have done, and I gradually began to realize that you would not have considered it an imposition to have taken us on this trip. I had been afraid to mention that we would like to do this, for fear that we would impose on you. In case that you felt that I had done the wrong thing, I wish to apologize, and to promise to behave better the next tine. I hope, too, that I never have a week in Washington which allows so little free time for visiting as that week did.

I am working hard now on various researches and on a book on the quantum mechanics of organic molecules, in collaboration with Wheland. Brookway is finishing up a lot of electron diffraction work, in preparation for leaving on his Guggenheim Fellowship for England on August 15th. He will teach physical chemistry at the University of Michigan after returning. Sturdivant is working on a new x-ray apparatus for the study of solutions; I am hoping that it will provide a great number of interesting results.

With best regards to you and to your wife, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mrl