(1st letter from Joel Hastings Metcalf to Prof. Campbell, August 27, 1904
-written on letterhead from Manchester College, Oxford, England, which
he crossed out and hand-wrote the following return address)
 

         34 Wendell St.
         Cambridge, Mass.

Prof. Campbell
     Director Lick Observatory
 

Dear Sir:

I am making preparations to measure a series of plates of the Praesepe Cluster in Cancer which I took last winter at Oxford Observatory with the Astrographic telescope. All the work on the cluster since Schurs has so far as I know been based upon his positions and _____ other absolute positions taken. In thinking the problem over it seemed to me that the results would be much more valuable if one could start afresh and base the work on the best meridian observations obtainable today.

 To this end after talking over the matter with Prof. Pickering I turn to the Lick Observatory.

 Would it be possible for you to put all or some part of Schurs' 45+ stars (or any stars within a degree of the center of the Cluster) on your working list this winter so I might have from three to 5 observations of each.

 Prof. Pickering tells me that you are expected to be in St. Louis during the forthcoming meeting. Would it be too much to ask you to talk the matter over with him and with Prof. Turner
With whom I had the pleasure of working last winter and whose method I propose to follow in the work.

       Very truly yours,
             Joel H. Metcalf
 

(Prof.Turner was the director of the Oxford Observatory when Metcalf took leave from his Church in Burlington, Vermont between 1903 and 1904)