October 20, 1960

Mr. Richard H. Ragle
Department of Geology
Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire

Dear Mr. Ragle:

Thank you for your letter of October 3. Before going any further,
| should like to ask you whether [t would be possible to get samples
from deep corings that have never been thawed so that we could take our
own bacterlological precautions In extracting the interior. May | also
ask you If you can estimate the age of your deepest samples?

Depending on how these matters work out, we might Tike to undertake
something with the samples ourselves, or falling this, get them to one
of my colleagues and former fellows In England, Dr. Peter Sneath, who
Is very much Interested in the survival of micro-organisms over very long
perjods of time,

Yours cordially,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics