Letters to the Editor
ABOUT THE X-RAY EXPERIMENT My dear Mr. Kelly:
I am enclosing a few remarks about our early experiments with X-rays at the Dartmouth laboratory. I wish that you would talk with my brother who knows more about the date of my earliest picture, so that the manuscript may be made to read January 24th or February Ist, as the fact may be established. The only weak point in the evidence which my brother finally provided is whether Dr. Dickinson of Springfield preached on January 24th as well as February Ist. My brother found positive evidence as to February first, but those college preachers often took two Sundays in succession. I remember perfectly well having my first pictures in my pocket in church on the morning following the Successful experiments. It does not seem possible that the experiments could have been begun on January 31st and that we could have developed our technique to the point of photographing a broken forearm on February 3rd or that I could have gotten the article ready for Science on February 4th, after only three or four days of study of these rays. I am certainly inclined to date the first picture on January 24th. I distinctly remember testing a lot of Crookes tubes and then choosing the best one. This took time, working several nights.
I regret that I cannot remember the name of the person who carried the bullet in his mortal frame and allowed us to photograph it; nor do I remember the date.
I also recall nothing about the two forks. My very earliest pictures had objects of various thickness and material, and included a pair of scissors. You have my brother send the print of one of these.
I may be able to give you an idea of the relative earliness of our work after I hear from Dr. Glasser of Cleveland, who is writing a history of the subject and will use some of the prints sent me from Hanover in illustrations. I wish to be careful not to claim any priority that is not absolutely certain; and in any event it only concerns work in the United States.
We have had a fine Dartmouth Alumni meeting on the 14th with thirty-two in attendance, including Dean Laycock.
The University of Chicago, Yerkes Observatory,Williams Bay, Wis.
A DESCENDANT OF THE WILLIAMS FAMILY
Dear Professor Clark: Eric Kelly's article on "The Dartmouth Indians" in the December issue was of unusual interest to me.
I read it through, name by name, with a vague and undefined wonder—a wonder if I would find anything really of interest, because I knew so little what to expect. In fact, I doubt if I really expected anything. And then on page 125 I discovered "The Reverend Eleazar Williams,"
Years and years ago I read "The Boy Captive of Deerfield" and I think there was another companion book called "The Boy Captive in Canada." At that time I recall my mother telling me that I was a descendent of the boy captive, Stephen Williams, and from that day the thought of his sister, Eunice, preferring to remain among the Indians had always intrigued me.
It was this remembrance, then, that made me wonder if by any chance, however remote, I might find some ancestral connection with Eunice Williams and the Indians. I experienced a real feeling of pleasure such as one does in climbing back along the branches of the family tree and finding a name that one had known of before.
My mother was present at the time the December issue arrived and I showed it to her and to my brother, Malcolm Johnson who was in the class of '21, and she then told me that our descent was traced through our paternal grandmother. I am much indebted to Mr. Kelly for the pleasant surprise he gave me.
7716 Austin St., Forest Hills, L. 1., N. Y.
A DESCENDANT OF ELEAZAR WHEELOCK
Dear Sir As a direct descendant of Eleazar Wheelock, D.D., through his son Eleazar (Yale, 1763), I have been much interested in your recent articles. If you are interested in the Wheelocks, previous and subsequent to the "Eleazors," consider my knowledge and papers at your disposal. Eleazar 2nd married Tryphena, daughter of King Crawk at Hanover in 1784 and moved to Wisconsin in 1806. I am the sixth generation in direct line on the male side, and take great pride in my family name as well as in Dartmouth College. The Wheelocks have remained connected with Indians down to today, and their football history at Carlisle is fascinating reading.
Wishing your paper and Dartmouth continued success and the best of (football) luck. 850 S. 58th St., Philadelphia, Pa.
MORE CORRECTIONS
The Editor wishes to thank Messrs. J. B. Hodgdon and Henry H. Austin who wrote in to correct the error in the '85 picture on Page 258 of the February issue. Since we have already printed the list of names in our correction, we will simply quote the last paragraph of Mr. Austin's letter.
"Hovey is not in the picture shown on page 258 of your February number. The photograph is a freshman picture of the members of '85 C. S. D. and the names reading from left to right are as follows: Top row: Simpson, Bourlet, Hodgdon, White, Allard, Wilcox. Second row: Clark, with the stove-pipe hat, Brooks, Hovey, Colby, Rogers, Larimer, Melendy. Front row: Annan, Williams, Austin, Weston, Cunningham, Shultz.
"St. Petersburg, Florida."
Unmarked graves on the St. Francis Reservation in Canada. From St. Francis many Indians came to the College and Moor School in the 18th and early 19th Centuries. They became teachers, preachers, guides, and one a translator of English books into the Abenaki dialect. One famous guide, Old Louis Annance, was a friend of Thoreau. The present school teacher, H. L. Masta, himself an Abenaki, and a descendant of the first Masta at Dartmouth, has erected a single memorial stone in this cemetery which may preserve the ground in years to come when the wilderness is parcelled into building lots, but hundreds of Indians are buried here without as much as a stick or stone to mark the graves.
WHERE DARTMOUTH INDIANS ARE BURIED
