Excited States of Stable Nuclei

THE facts quoted by Prof. Wilkins are plain; but these alone, and put in this way, may suggest more than he intends. It has often happened that similar experiments have been carried out at the same time in different laboratories, and I have no doubt it will happen again. The note by Prof. Wilkins and G. Kuerti on the detection of inelastically scattered protons appeared in the Physical Review of June 1, and thus before the letter of my colleagues and myself. Prof. Wilkins's experiments and ours have much in common, for they not only deal with the same phenomena but also use the same method for detecting and recording the scattered particles, namely, the photographic plate. The actual arrangements, that is, the `camera' designs, appear, however, to differ considerably. We were of course unaware of his results at the time of our communication to these columns.