34, Upper Hamilton Terrace,
N.W.8.

May 8th, 1933.

My dear Carter,

A friend sent me a cutting from an American scientific paper of a somewhat popular type giving an account of experiments by Professor R. W. Wood from the point of view of the physicist, which showed that the gold from which the red-coloured sequins were made contained iron. In May a year ago, Mr. J. R. Ogden got Messrs. Johnson, Matthey & Co., the gold experts, to make an analysis of one of the sequins and they reported that the alloy contained 1.55 per cent of iron. Doubtless Mr. Ogden sent you a copy of the analysis which fully explained the source of the colour, known for years now to consist of nothing but oxide of iron. My own analysis, since made with extreme care and using a larger quantity of the alloy shows only 0.81 per cent of iron but this is far more than enough to give the red colour without any iron being supplied from an external source.

I need not trouble you now with an account of all the experiments which we have made at odd times, as you, no doubt, will be in London shortly, if not already here.

Dr. Plenderleith has also a lot of notes on various minerals and materials for you but which he cannot write out owing to

(August 30, 2008)

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