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March 3, 1964

Dear Friend, Reverend Sizemore:

The attached is a copy of the report sent by the Museum in Phila. The age of the timber when put to use is taken for zero, though it must have been well seasoned, especially because of the purpose for which it was employed.

The adherents of the conventional chronology may claim catastrophes and a subsequent effect on carbon dates; thus they stand before the choice of accepting at least one of my theses—either of Worlds in Collision or of Ages in Chaos.

The effect of the catastrophes—increase in cosmic rays and an invasion of fossil carbon into the atmosphere (from conflagrations) of which the former would tend to decrease the carbon age and the latter to increase it—it can be followed up through a planned program of tests. . .

  Very cordially,
  Immanuel Velikovsky