Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to or corrective of news previously published in TIME.

Salvage

Sirs:

In your issue for July 5, p. 8, appears an article which will lead your readers to believe that there has been a failure in a bona fide attempt to raise the S-51.

The wording of the article conveys what may be called half-truths. The bow of the S-51 did come up, but not by the desire or intent of the salvage force, whose plans required bringing the stern up first.

Late on the night of Monday, June 21, there remained about an hour's work for the divers to make the S-51 entirely ready for raising. All eight pontoons had been floated off the bottom but with only sufficient buoyancy to insure that they would not settle down again.

The weather on the morning of Tuesday, June 22, made it wholly impracticable to attempt the raising. No diving could be done. The FALCON (salvage tug) had to be moored with her bow over the stern of the S-51 to enable her to stay in position long enough to boost the pontoons sufficiently to make up for the overnight leakage and to maintain them "as they were" until the wind and sea should moderate. The bow pontoons had not yet been boosted when the bow was found to be coming up.

Once the bow was up the effort had to be made, despite the adverse wind and sea conditions (which were getting worse) to get the stern up. This effort did not succeed, owing to the parting of the chains of the stern pair of pontoons.

The bow then had deliberately to be let down again in order to save what could be saved of an unexpected, difficult and trying situation.

No such remarks were made as your article puts in the mouth of the writer.

ERNEST J. KING,

Captain, U. S. Navy,

Officer in charge, salvage operations, S-51. United States Fleet Base Force, Train Squadron 1. U. S. S. Vestal

Point Judith, R. I.

TIME was so far from supposing that the bow of the S-51 came up "by the desire or intent of the salvage force" as to state ". . . (the) workers were astonished to see the nose of the sunken monster suddenly poke through the waves. . . ." The facts of this accident as reported by TIME do not differ materially from those cited by Captain King. None the less TIME did not explicitly state that the pumping of a small amount of air into the lifting pontoons on the day in question was but a preliminary action, not intended to produce the disastrous raising of the bow, which actually resulted from an unpredictable and unexpected relaxation of the sea bottom's grip upon the S-51. To Captain King thanks for making clear this point. The remarks attributed to Captain King by a correspondent present at the event and subsequently printed verbatim by TIME were: "We've done everything we can. Two months of it and we're tired!" To able Captain King TIME'S apologies for misquotation and congratulations upon his successful raising of the S-51. (See NATIONAL AFFAIRS, p. 7) -- ED.

Lloyd George

Sirs:

For some time I have been troubled by repeated occurrences in your incomparable publication. To wit: is it Mr. Lloyd George, or simply Mr. George, who has achieved fame in Britain ? By those from the Island I am informed that I am correct : that it should be Lloyd George and not simply George. Kindly enlighten me. (I never had these doubts till TIME repeatedly referred to the man as Mr. George.)

TIME is excellent; may it continue its high standards. My praise is, that I have read it consistently almost, I believe, from its inception.

WM. McK. RUTTER

Philadelphia, Pa.

Mr. George's father was the late William George, one time Master of the Hope Street Unitarian School of Liverpool. His mother, nee Lloyd, a resolute Baptist, influenced him after his father's death to accept her faith and habitually to link her name (his second given name) with his surname.

Diet

Sirs:

Now that I am fully intrenched in the TIME habit, I find that it is an indispensable part of my literary diet. As soon as my short term trial subscription expires, enter me for one year's subscription.

JOHN W. MARSHALL

Reeves-Marshall Grocery Co. Eufaula, Ala.

Splendid

Sirs:

I wonder if you are admirers of the New York World. If you are, we have one other joy in common.

Did you see the morning edition of the New York World on July 5th? On the front page appeared a picture, entitled "A Petting Party." It was a poor likeness of Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York in a bathing suit, who was holding in his arms what appeared to be a small dog named Topsy.

I do not remember pictures of this type referring to the able Cleveland or to that great statesman, Woodrow Wilson.

I showed the picture of Governor Smith for whom I have always voted when given the opportunity, to a very good Republican, who remarked: "Splendid. It shows him in his true light."

ROGER M. GILDERSLEEVE

New York, N. Y.

Dollar Found

Sirs:

Apropos of Mr. Dickson H. Leavens' letter on p. 2 of TIME, July 5, don't take backwater on that English dollar.

Enclosed is a more or less unsatisfactory rubbing of a coin dated 1804. On the face it reads "Georgius III Dei Gratia Rex" and on the reverse "Bank of England, Five Shillings, Dollar, 1804."

CHAS. H. TAYLOR

Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.

TIME declared (April 26) : "If . . . George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac, it doubtless bore a British stamp." Subscriber Leavens wrote: "I think you will not find any record of the British having coined dollars." -- ED.