February 6, 1939

Dr. David Harker

Department of Chemistry

The Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

Dear David:

The other day Weaver asked me if the new methods of treating x-ray data developed by Wrinch and Langmuir, and I replied that I did not know what contributions they had made in this field, since I have been unable to find anything in their papers which represented an advance over the work of previous investigators, and in particular of that of Patterson and you. Weaver then said that you were very enthusiastic about the Wrinch-Langmuir discovery. I have now re-read the article and letter published in Nature last fall, and I have not been able to find anything beyond what is contained or obviously implied in the work of other x-ray men. Have I overlooked some important idea in the mass of verbiage?

Albrecht and Corey have done a fine job in completing the glycine investigation, which should be published in the J.A.C.S. soon. Corey is now going on with the investigation of proteins themselves.

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP/jr