Page transcription
May 24 1950
Dear Frere Irenée-Marie,
I am sorry that I cannot give you permission to publish any of the desmid in the collections that I sent you, for the reason that I expect to publish all of them myself, sooner or later; a few of them in my own name, and the remainder in collaboration with Prescott or someone else. I sent you the samples simply for your own pleasure and edification, as I have sent similar boxes of samples to Teiling, Grünblad, Brunel, Bourrelly, Buzicks, Sampsoio, Sachlan in Buitenzorg, and Ophel in Australia. But I am sure that you will derive a great deal of enjoyment from their examination, even though it may be tantalizing to see so many new and unfamiliar forms without being able to describe them.
Dr. Brunel is not working on my Micrasterias, but on his own specimens from Canada. I sent him some gatherings which contain a wide range of Micrasterias species so that he might compare the sub-tropical forms from Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida with the Canadian plants. As you say, he is so methodical and painstaking that there is no telling when he will publish his results. Furthermore, he told me when I met him in New York, that so much of his time is now taken up with the administrative duties of the Institut Botanique that he has practically no time left for research. For this reason he was thinking of recording his results by means of photomicrographs instead of camera lucida drawings. I should not think that would be very satisfactory, because no photograph can show the fine details on which a positive determination frequently depends.
As to your problem of finding a review which will accept scientific manuscript in French, I wish to suggest La Revue Algologique, which resumed publication last year I believe. The Directeur is Robert Lami, Laboratoire de Cryptogamie, 18 rue de Buffon, Paris 5e, France. Also there is the journal Hydrobiologia, published by Uitgiverij Dr. W. Junk, Den Haag, Holland, which publishes papers in English, French and German, also Italian I believe. Dr. Wm. Randolph Taylor is on the Board of Editors of Hydrobiologia, and you might write to him for further information.
I think you are right in your resolve to continue writing in French. For my part I can read French almost as easily as English, though I cannot speak it, or write it except in a schoolboyish manner. German I read with a little more difficulty, but my knowledge of French and German enables me to make out the sense of scientific papers in several other languages; Danish, Norwegian and Swedish which are related to German, and Portuguese and Spanish which are related to French. Of course I cannot pretend to understand every word, but at least I can get the general meaning. This is not the case with the Slavic languages, of which I know nothing whatever. I have received several papers written in Czech, which might as well be Sanskrit.
Under separate cover I am sending you prints of six plates for a forthcoming paper by Prescott and myself on Micrasterias. Note that the names which I have placed on them are tentative, and subject to final determination by Prescott.
With my best regards, sincerely yours,
