January 5, 1955

Dear Bruce:

1 have had your draft for some few days now, but first got
&II time and courage to go into it summarily just now, I am
quite optimistic that we can get togsthe over it, though .we
may have (by ample prscedent) some discussion over style. I
think it should be possible to shorten the exposition considerably
without impairing ite clarity or content, but this will take some
working out.

As to the data, taken overall, they pardllel quite closely my
c>;m Ftxperience with SW-666, and except -where some specific amenda-
tfons CJr generalizations are needed, it probably will not be necessary
to cay .qore than that they aocord. 1 do notice that you have had a few
examples yourself of clones that were partly swozms4 partly %&linesll.

X0t.U. you consider soms tarminological rumination further? I am not

very happy about '!semi-clone I', nor, much better&about uniXnear, and
XF'.' still *trying $0 think "f any better. HOK about some of the following:
primdgeniti.ve, monochotomous, or (what I would vote for tentatively)
(uni)-catenate. The last has the advanta e of suggesting a number of
correlated nouns and adjectives- chain $ as the generalization of a trail);
oligo-catenate; branched, etc. There are also a nuj&er of more or less
precise analog&as to catenate inheritance, for example Jennings, 1908,
Jour. Exp. Zool. 357'7, &Lch suggested ,this 3erninology. I am trying to
collect instances for discussion.

Aside from style, the principal exception that I would take to the
draft is that it is ratti too peremptory in affirming the favored hypo-
thesis. I am reminded of the fate of 'the original hypothesis of abortive
transduction, which also seenrad quite unec~uivocally suopbrted; But as you
will have a better opoortunity to judge, I am sure we can agree about
this, and without weakening the exposition. The historical develop*&
is not :luite accurate (at least for my own psyche, and, e.g., I used
trap droplets right from the start, <and have had minimum trouble with
inviability and sticking at early stages) but again some compromise is
likely.

It will take me a little while to do all this, and there are also a
fwclenup experiments I want to try. It seems to ms that the behavior of
clones containing st&le motiles should be studied farther (albeit with
xome difficulty). I am also suspicious that the di$tiribution of ijarticles
from non-E parent cells is non-random, but it will take some rather
tedious review of old protocols to find out for sure. What dc you take
as the critical evidence for the F4el.l hypothesis, that you get
only one cell per clone that gives mars than 10 motile chains? But
if the &&xx distribution of chains w from non-E's is also non-
random, we would not have a very precise test of the hypothesis.

1 admit that this notion is far and away the most attractive, but
we ought not go any further in advan&ng it thsn the evidence will
allow-- do pardon that pomposity, Bruce, I just mean that precisely
because the idea is intuitively attractive, we don't want to be
caught holding a lemon. I wish I could think of feasible, critical
expertints, but this is why I had been so hesitant about what ought
to be a definitive publication.

Yours.