April 20, 1955

Dr. Bruce Stocker
Lister Institute
London, England

Dear Bruce:

I am afraid this parcel will be something of a disappointment. As my
earlier letters indieated, I had dropped everything else since the beginning
of the year in hopes of cleariyg up the trails story at this end; it has turned
out a much more formidable task than I would have anticipated. I am particularly
anxious to return to the conjugal colis which I had to abendon last Xmas. Had
nothing else supervened, I would have preferred to wait until I had a chance
to think the matter through, but this might mean a year's additional delay and
would not be fair to you, and especially to your student.

So I tried to see about amending your draft, and found this a most discouraging
task. We might have managed this a year ago, and I am sorry now we did not, but
since then we have not in fact been doing the same experiments. I found I could
not conscientiously share the responsibility mx or the credit for pedigrees (on
the lineage of E) such as I had not duplicated, and when you mentioned the detra
desirability of bringing in the werk by Quadling on which I hadn't a notion, it
beceme obvious that matters have progreseed tofar to continue the plan of coauthor-
ship/ I am not particularly distressed by residual differences in outlook— like
yourself, I am sure they could be quickly resolved if we had the chance of intimate
conversation, which I greatly miss. The final défficulty is that we have a different
outlook on style, and I suspect that almost anything that we could comprombke on
under these awkward circumstances (I mean only distance) would leave us both un-
happy. With some wief then I went ahead last week on a different basis, namely
to write a separate paper intended to accompany your own wherever we agree to
publish, So with some well considered apologies for having kept you so long, I an
asking you to consider this as an alternative procedure. My own preference for
journal on this basis is Genetica, partly because of the convenience of its being
edited here (by Crow and Brink), partly because it reasheente- reached the audience
that would be most interested and best prepabed for the story. However, JGM would
not do badly either, If you are concerned about paying for reprints, I think we
could (if you wanted) arrange to have the two papers reprinted together and econc-
mize very considerably.

I still want to find an opportunity to join with you in a joint statement on
the problem, Rather than MGB (though I would acquiesce) I would suggest submitting
an abstract for the Genetics Society meeting this September. It would be published
in that issue of “enetics, and be available for formal citation, e.g., if needed
by Wuadling. Would you want to draw one up? It needs to be under 250 words, unfor~
tunately, and I am hoping that the accom gus, Will give you 4 clear enough
idea of what we might agree about. This to be delivered to the Sect. by May 20,

so there is enough, but not excess, time,
*1 at pl3

As you see for yourself, this draft is not a finished job. Most of the

gaps in the data represent an incomplete assimilation of experiments al-
ready done, but there are some I definitely want to repeat or extend,
particularly on further branching of chains after N13, and on the par-

tition of chain numbers, I have never had a herder job writing than this:

the pedigrees are almost impossible to summarize except in terms of some
concrete working hypothesis, a luxury I have perhaps masoch&ktically refused.
But the 11:20 split mentioned on p. 6 was quite unmistakable, end it worries
me to have an isolated case. In one subclone, the branching occurred between
Ng-N7 5 (the ll's side); most of the 20 was a group of 18 that came from one
céll rekbelated at N15» probably the lakest branching in my experience, This
doesn't bowl over your hypothesis (the question is perhaps what would?) since
why should your gene not rarely split once, if it was not already easentially
divided when the donor cell happened to be lysed.

You might have had this draft sooner but for a very welcome visit from
Tracy Bonneborn. What a wonderful segregation story he hasf There happens
to be a fellow here (Kimura) who specializes in stochastic processes in
genetigs, and has worked out some mathemat&cal models that so far give a
surprisingly good fit to TMS's data, Tracy told meymwnawa of meeting you
and the impression you made with your pedigrees on the trail story. I insisted
he read the parent of this draft, rough as it was, At first he wes not at all
keem ahout my fussiness, thinking you had the mosy streightforward interpre-
tation, but it turns be kexje had aisunderstood something, and though you
had identified the mep with the gene along the lines Al or B3c Jppll-12)# which
is probably the one notion we would now both favor the least! F-am-a-déseze
surprised- Tracy is quite unhappy about the idea of any appreciab@a persistence
of normal organelles in the absence of genes related to their formation; his
own experience in Paramecium, with kappa and gulléés has gone the other way.
Still I am a little surprised at his current stand, since before I heard it#
from you, he had suggested *3 when we visitéd him en route to the Oak Ridge
meetings last spring,

I don't know whether you will care to go along on the terminology, though
chain and unicatenate have worked out quite successfully (though I had an awkward
moment on p. 15 line 24 "seqgence" ha!), I thtnk we should agree en such symbols
as mep and E, These will do for me as is, but we ought to consider other pos-
sibilities- greek letvers? - which might be less suggestive,

Bruce~ we had such a time together a year and a half ago, I can't help think
about it without nost&agia and regret we can't operate more closely together; I
know that Esther shared that sense of stimulation too. If we don't somehov manage
to get to the UK ourselves first, and being a duo and at the university does impeir
our motility, is there any chance at all of your coming back to Madison and spen-
ding more than a paltry few weeks here this time? If you can manage the fare, I'm
sure we can match your stipend, though what with Reckefeller and Commenwealth
you could probably swing that yourself with no trouble at all. I really do
feel frustrated at having to keep contact by mail,oniy/.

Sayhow let me know your reaction to the present scheme, My suggestion on
procedureis to allow about a month to complete our mss and finish loose ends and
decide where to send them. It was Tracy who suggested emphasizing p.18; we may
want to exchange brickbats even more freely-— now's your chance. You never have
sent me your crucial pedigrees mentioned in your draft, but that is sympathy, not
criticism, If you can get the time to reply by tape, maybe you'll get your answer
the sane ways; it's only fuss and inertia that's held that up.

Yours,