35 Belgrave Street,

SKIPTON,
North Yorks.,
8023 1QB
4th April 1995
Dear Donald,
As usual, please accept my apologies for long delay
in replying, particularly in view of your invitation
to visit Cambridge.
The delay was due to two causes. Firstly, I had had
no reply from my German friend about the enclosed text.
Secondly, because I had been hoping to meet you in
Sweden at the Conference, to attend which I applied
after details arrived in the HMS Newsletter.
I received my German friend's reply yesterday, but
have no news out of Sweden - I expect they are having
difficulty in alloting applicants between the various
kinds on accommodation.
My German friend thought she could not improve on my
transJation. liowevAr we are neither of us met8llurgists,
so she contacted the Librarian of the Verein der Giesserei
fachleute. My friend found the translation excellent, but
thought Johannsen was probably right in assessing 'half
a man's height' as 3/4 m (2 ft 6in), in which case that
footnote just needs deleting. Are you cognisant of such
things? The Librarian thought that the diifcult three
lines probably related to the solidification process and note, when you pour metal from the ladle, if it is
,,.--to run sharp and clean, then the hotter the metal is, the
flatter (the surface), and the farther (from the ladle)
away it cools, the better'. The Librarian also suggested
that 'nach hin' might be intended in the temporal sense
of 'later on'. With regard to 'Plateriger', she suggested
that when fluid materials solidify, a hollow (the German
word looks like 'Lunker', but is not in my 2 vol. dictionary)
often forms which has to be filled in or worked out, and
that possibly the great heat recommended was designed to
reduce this phenomenon.
Your thoughts on these matters would be appreciated.
You may also wish to query the use of the term 'regulus'
as also other things that would not occur to me. Over to
you.

Today I am off to London, where I was hoping to

arrange foreign currency, payment of the conference
expences, as well as book my trip, in between
spending four days in the East Sussex Record Office.
However, it begins to look as though I shall not
manage to get to Sweden, in which case I will see
if I can fit in a visit to Cambridge in June.
Yours sincerely

P.S. I was very sorry to read of Professor Needham's

death. It hardly seems possible that he is no longer
with us. I hope contingency plans were made to carry
on the work.