One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

The like was from me - I think you owe Ike an apology.

Thanks, Mr. Owl.

Yes, I admit that your name immediately came to mind (you clearly lurk in the shadows, and I strongly suspect that there are only about three or four people still reading this thread and cheering for the diary no matter how bad the arguments) but what fun is there in pointing out your misguided subservience when I can lay it at Ike's doorstep?

It's not as if Ike doesn't slap his friend Ero on the back every chance he gets and does so openly in the body of his posts.

After all, Ike has been falsely accusing Melvin Harris of being 'evil' and 'viperous' and 'villainous' for weeks, so I thought it was appropriate to give him a dose of his own medicine.

I wonder if Ike has ever stopped to think how Melvin's widow (if she is still alive) or his friends like Stewart Evans (who is still very much with us) or his old colleagues who worked on the Arthur C. Clarke program would react if they saw some anonymous person on the internet (be it 'Ike' or 'Mitchell' or 'Soothsayer') calling their dead friend a 'viper' and a 'villain' and 'evil'?

Isn't it an extremely low and cowardly thing to do?

Alan Gray was attempting to expose the diary as a modern fake (which it is) and he was consulted by Melvin Harris, who lived in another city.

Paul Feldman was attempting to prove the diary was genuine, and he was consulted on various levels by Keith Skinner, Paul Begg, Martin Fido, Martin Howells, Anne Graham, Carol Emmas, Robbie Johnson, Colin Wilson, and others. Using Ike's silly and destructive vernacular, are these people similarly viperous?

From what I've read on this thread over the years, Keith Skinner is still stung by being called "Feldman's henchman" nearly twenty-five years ago. I can appreciate why these were painful words. Ike is now retaliating by calling Harris's motives 'evil' and 'villainous,' but Ike's accusations are so obviously partisan and overblown and stupid and strained that they are a poison that contains its own antidote.

Why does Ike pick at these old scabs like a little schoolboy, hoping to make them bleed again?

Are his arguments for the diary's authenticity so weak and ridiculous that he must resort to ad hominem attacks?

Answer: yes, yes they are.

In the end, there is a lot of water under the bridge, so why not let bygones be bygones and argue on the merits of the evidence rather than revisit ancient history?

In the words of George W. Bush, let us seek a "kinder and gentler" examination of the Maybrick Hoax as we approach September and Mr. Jones's book launch, and in this spirit I will indeed apologize to Ike, even though in the same breath I must chide him for his silly attacks on a man no longer here to defend himself.

[erobitha]

HOW WE KNOW THE MAYBRICK DIARY IS A MODERN FAKE, EXPLAINED IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES.

Despite various claims made on this thread, the diary cannot be an old document. Here's how we know.

The diary uses iron gall ink, and over a period of weeks and months, iron gall ink will permanently bond to paper.

This chemical process is unavoidable--all it takes is time and oxygen.

The important thing to realize is that the Maybrick Diary is no different: it, too, is written in iron gall ink and it, too, is permanently attached to the paper it is written on.

How do we know this?

We know this because in November 1994, the University of Leeds was commissioned to test the diary and to do this the scientists involved needed to dissolve a small sample of the diary’s ink.

They found that it was nearly impossible to do so. The ink was almost entirely and irreversibly bonded to the paper.

The important part of the report will be reprinted below, but in brief, Leeds tried to dissolve the ink using the solvent MEK.

I used to occasionally work with MEK because my old company used it to clean ink-jet printers when they became gummed-up with dry ink. It is nasty stuff (it can cause nerve damage) but if nothing else works, MEK will do the trick.

Note that MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) is closely related to Dimethyl Ketone (another name for acetone) which was the solvent that Dr. Baxendale used in his July 1992 analysis. Also bear in mind that Baxendale diluted the acetone he used with an equal amount of distilled water.

Acetone is, in fact, merely liquid ketone, but methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) is generally considered the more effective solvent because it doesn't evaporate as quickly due to its other ingredients.

Instead of using distilled water, Leeds diluted the MEK with isopropyl alcohol and ammonia.

Yet, when Leeds soaked samples of the Maybrick Diary’s ink and paper in this solution, they noticed the ink would not dissolve, nor separate from the paper.

Just as one would expect from an old document, the diary’s iron gall ink was entirely hardened and attached to the paper; it behaved just like documents from 1908 and 1925 had behaved when tested by Baxendale back in 1992. (See previous post).

Remarkably, Leeds also heated up the solvent. Heat activates the molecules, making them bounce around more freely, so this should have made it easier for the ink to dissolve---just like hot water does a better job at dissolving dried mud from a pair of trousers than plain cold water does.

Yet, even with the solvent heated, the diary’s ink wasn't dissolving or separating from the paper.

Leeds also bombarded the ink and paper sample with ultrasonic waves, which sends hundreds of vibrations per second into every crease and crevice of the ink and paper—sort of like tiny, invisible scrub bushes.

These ultrasonic cleaning machines were also used where I worked; if all else failed when trying to dislodge dried ink from a printer’s nozzle we would place the nozzle in a bath of MEK in the ultrasonic cleaning machine’s tray and turn it on, letting the vibrations work their magic for a few minutes or half an hour. The ink would eventually dissolve and work free.

Yet, using this same procedure, Leeds still found the diary’s ink insoluble. Clearly, the ink and the paper were permanently bonded. The Maybrick Diary behaved like an old document.

Here it is.

The following is from The Report of A. Kazlauciunas of Wolfson Laboratory, Department of Colour Chemistry, University of Leeds, dated 24 November 1994 (TLC procedure by A. Davey):

TLC - Procedure

The Diamine Blank Manuscript Ink was spotted onto a standard aluminum oxide thin layer chromatography plate and eluted using a solvent combination of methyl ethyl ketone, isopropyl alcohol and ammonia [ratio 1:1:1].

****Ink scrapings from the diary were then soaked in 40 µ litres of this solvent combination, yet despite warming and ultrasound treatment, the ink remained bound to the paper***

The TLC associated with the Diamine Ink is illustrated in PHOTOGRAPH NUMBER 1. This shows how the ink has separated into four different Rf value colour bands. PHOTOGRAPH NUMBER 2 compares the Diamine Ink (fully dissolved in the solvent mixture) with the diary ink/paper fragments (not soluble in the solvent mixture).

----

Think about what this means, folks.

In November 1994 – two years and seven months after Mike Barrett first brought the scrapbook to London---the diary’s ink was utterly insoluble. It behaved just like any other old document written in iron gall ink. The ink wouldn’t dissolve. And it was still left stuck to the paper.

The MEK was even heated and the ink and paper bombarded with ultrasonic waves.

The ink would still would not dissolve or give up color.

This was great news for those who believed in the diary’s antiquity, except for one damning detail.

Back on July 1, 1992, Dr. David Baxendale had already tested the ink’s solubility.

He had placed an identical sample of the diary’s ink and paper into a diluted, unheated solution of acetone and water and watched as it quickly dissolved, so much so that left almost no ink on the paper.

These radically differing results have only one credible explanation: Barrett wasn’t lying. The diary was only about 10 weeks old when Baxendale tested it on 1 July 1992. It had been finished a mere eighty days earlier, to be precise, and this meant that the ink hadn’t had time to permanently bond to the paper fibers.

By the time Leeds tested it again 28 months later, it had.

And really, why should this surprise us? We now know that Barrett went shopping for a blank Victorian Diary at the end of March 1992 and we also know that the Diary’s text quotes a police inventory list that hadn’t been published until 1987/1988 and then only in two books—one of which Barrett used to create his bogus research notes.

What a cheeky bastard.

And this means that Mike’s boast of having churned-out the physical diary in only 11 days is April 1992 is true.

Q.E.D.

Ignoring totally the fact the diary after 1992 was held in normal environments which allowed time for the oxygen to do its work.

Find me a paper and ink expert who will testify that under certain conditions the bonding process can be significantly slowed down to the point of ‘suspended animation’ as you put it.

Otherwise this statement proves nothing.

[rjpalmer]

Ignoring totally the fact the diary after 1992 was held in normal environments which allowed time for the oxygen to do its work.

This is totally delusional and knee-jerk, I'm afraid. This isn't how it works.

The diary, if under Dodd's floorboards (for which there is no evidence, by the way) had 102 years to "do its work." It would have also 'done it's work' if left in a controlled environment, just as it 'did it's work' in the 28 months it spent in Robert Smith's safe.

But at this stage you are simply sticking your fingers in your ears and humming, so there's nothing more I can do for you. I can quote chemists, etc., but you won't believe me, so the only advice I can suggest is taking Baxendale's report and taking the Leeds report to a chemist and having him or her explain to you the implications of these wildly differing observations. You might also mention the police inventory list--just for fun.

Oh, one other thing. Not that this is particularly relevant, but do you think Maybrick kept the diary in a controlled, oxygen free environment as he allegedly added entries in iron gall ink between early 1888 and his death in early May 1889? He somehow preserved the ink from bonding during that span?

That was a good 16 months of unneeded exposure alone. Yet somehow placing the diary in a hermetically sealed biscuit tin after May 6ht kept it in a state of suspended animation for another 102 years until freed from its confines by Edward Lyons?

Give it up. You'd be better off believing in the Cottingley Fairies, but I can't help you.

[Iconoclast]

In the words of George W. Bush, let us seek a "kinder and gentler" examination of the Maybrick Hoax as we approach September and Mr. Jones's book launch, and in this spirit I will indeed apologize to Ike, even though in the same breath I must chide him for his silly attacks on a man no longer here to defend himself.

The obvious (and sad) fact that he is no longer with us does not change his deeply self-interested actions whilst he was, nor the fact that he masked his true intentions under a veil of honourable concern for integrity.

If he was still with us, my opinion could not be changed even if his willingness to be more upfront about his motivations had.

As I say, integrity my arse.

[Iconoclast]

Oh, one other thing. Not that this is particularly relevant, but do you think Maybrick kept the diary in a controlled, oxygen free environment as he allegedly added entries in iron gall ink between early 1888 and his death in early May 1889? He somehow preserved the ink from bonding during that span?

I'm sure that you can work out the answer to your own question, RJ. I'm confident that Baxendale wasn't allowed to test every page of the scrapbook - I assume that it was just the one. Which one? A very old entry or a very recent entry (from the perspective of May 3, 1889)? I don't know. Do you?

[erobitha]

I'm sure that you can work out the answer to your own question, RJ. I'm confident that Baxendale wasn't allowed to test every page of the scrapbook - I assume that it was just the one. Which one? A very old entry or a very recent entry (from the perspective of May 3, 1889)? I don't know. Do you?

I don’t think we will get anywhere on this one Ike. Whilst with our fingers in our ears and away with the fairies we obviously cannot fathom that the preparation mix used for the ink contained Iron gall - or did it? Or if it contained nigrosine - or did it?

If I am so confused on the above variables then I am clearly barking mad on the point of environment.

Perhaps RJ would be as so kind as to show me the absolute proof about the ink and its exact composition? I’m certain this has never been certain.

[Iconoclast]

Back on July 1, 1992, Dr. David Baxendale had already tested the ink’s solubility. He had placed an identical sample of the diary’s ink and paper into a diluted, unheated solution of acetone and water and watched as it quickly dissolved, so much so that left almost no ink on the paper.

RJ,

Do you have the source for the above claim? I cannot find this in any of my Baxendale records and I am wondering if you have access to a document which I do not.

Indeed, I am struck when reviewing the communications I have copies of from Baxendale that he is deeply insouciant regarding the solubility issue of the ink in the scrapbook. This doesn't make sense to me. If he - as you argue - had nailed the hoax on the issue of solubility, that should have been that. He should have made it the central plank of his report and screamed it from the rooftops; and yet it seems to be little more than a casual addendum to a report which contained evident inaccuracies (so much so, of course, that he had to ask for his report to not be used). The general feeling is that the analysis of the ink was very much a secondary focus for him.

To be clear, this is what I have regarding the ink.

In his report dated July 1, 1992, which he faxed to Robert Smith at Smith Gryphon, he stated regarding the ink:



This was the sum of his commentary regarding his analysis of the ink (at least it is in the copy of his report which I have).

On July 3, 1992, Baxendale wrote in reply to a letter from Doreen Montgomery of Rupert Crew:



This does rather imply that Baxendale had not treated the analysis of the ink as a core focus for his report, consistent with his general tone of disinterest in the significance of his own findings regarding its so-called solubility. Indeed, he states that "the chemical tests are not of the essence in this case".

On July 9, 1992, Baxendale wrote to Robert Smith who had evidently challenged Baxendale's interpretation of the ink analysis:






Here, Baxendale has leapt into a summary and conclusion without providing any supporting analysis regarding the scrapbook ink. This is inexplicable - certainly when set against your own very detailed description of the process he followed (which is what gives me cause to believe that I may not have access to all of Baxendale's opinions and analysis). What concerns me is this abrupt conclusion regarding the solubility of the scrapbook ink and it makes me wonder whether Baxendale was getting himself confused with his original claim that the ink was 'free-flowing'? As Baxendale's letter to Montgomery shows, he was a busy man, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he got confused about which report he was referring back to. I'm sure that your additional evidence will clarify this point for us.

On August 14, 1992, Smith wrote back to Baxendale seeking clarity on his views on the scrapbook binding, the paper, and the ink:



On August 20, 1992, Baxendale replied:



Here we see Baxendale repeating his comment regarding the freely soluble nature of the ink which he then expands on by claiming he'd have expected such writing from 1888 and 1889 to be far less soluble. Again, is he remembering his error from his previous letter to Smith and confusing free-flowing with freely soluble? And why has he underplayed the significance of the free solubility that he reported back on? It should have concluded all discussion as far as he was concerned, and yet he is quite equivocal regarding the importance this piece of information plays in the story. For you, it is gold dust and its consequences are set deep in stone, and yet for him it is an afterthought and not a particularly impactful one at that. How could he possibly have missed the relevance of what you have formed so central a plank of argument on?

Thus, I feel we need to see what you have that I don't have, RJ. Your quotation implies that Baxendale either wrote a wider report which expanded on the slender one I have or else that he wrote to someone and included this information which you have cited. It's kind of critical because I think the snippets above suggest that Baxendale's report was not exactly properly focused on the chemistry of ink.

Cheers,

Ike

[rjpalmer]

I'm sure that you can work out the answer to your own question, RJ. I'm confident that Baxendale wasn't allowed to test every page of the scrapbook - I assume that it was just the one. Which one? A very old entry or a very recent entry (from the perspective of May 3, 1889)? I don't know. Do you?

Ike - I'm relatively confident that there have been no scientific studies along the lines of The Ability of Gigantic Biscuit Tins to Retard and Prevent Iron Gall Ink From Behaving Normally (Mitchell, et al. 2007), so if that is the way you and Ero want to play your hand, by all means don't let me stop you.

[rjpalmer]

Thus, I feel we need to see what you have that I don't have, RJ.

Everything I have has been publicly available for years.

His comment that the ink was so freely soluble that nearly no ink was left on the diary's paper was in a follow-up letter to Harrison & Montgomery dated 9 July 1992.

"Only a small amount of insoluble black residue was left on the paper."

The ink had all but completely separated itself from the paper fibers.

Yet 28 months later, Leeds soaked the ink and paper in heated solvent and zapped it with ultrasonic vibrations and couldn't get it to budge.

Draw your own conclusions, Ike. The phony research notes, the police inventory list, and Martin Earl's appeal in Bookfinder should have told you how this was going to end.

The quote can be found in Harrison's "The American Connection" page 13, but if you can drum-up a full copy of the letter and post it we would all be obliged.

And how is releasing those Barrett/Gray tapes looking? Any progress?

[rjpalmer]

By the way, Ike -- we know the diary is an iron-based ink because of Dr. Eastaugh's findings. Are the diary folk now going to throw their own expert under the bus?

And nigrosine and iron gall ink are not mutually exclusive.

Pure Iron Gall Ink looks very watery and light when first applied. It only turns a rich blue-black as it hardens and oxidizes.

Thus, ink manufacturers started adding other dyes to it so it would look blackish "out of the gate," while waiting for the base ink to fully harden and oxidize.

One of these common dyes (sometime called 'sighting agents') was nigrosine.

Baxendale suspected the diary's ink had nigrosine from the beginning. Alex Voller also thought so when he did a visual examination. The only entity to cast doubt on this was Leeds, because they failed to find sodium, and nigrosine has lots of sodium.

When Eastaugh's report was finally made available (or at least PARTS of it), it revealed that he found sodium in the ink in six different tests, which supports the presence of nigrosine--thus confirming both Baxendale and Voller.

This also suggests just how flawed the Leeds examination was when it came to identifying chemicals in the ink. Voller had warned Harrison (as had Harris) but she had the tests done anyway.

[Iconoclast]

Everything I have has been publicly available for years.

His comment that the ink was so freely soluble that nearly no ink was left on the diary's paper was in a follow-up letter to Harrison & Montgomery dated 9 July 1992.

"Only a small amount of insoluble black residue was left on the paper."

The ink had all but completely separated itself from the paper fibers.

Yet 28 months later, Leeds soaked the ink and paper in heated solvent and zapped it with ultrasonic vibrations and couldn't get it to budge.

Draw your own conclusions, Ike. The phony research notes, the police inventory list, and Martin Earl's appeal in Bookfinder should have told you how this was going to end.

The quote can be found in Harrison's "The American Connection" page 13, but if you can drum-up a full copy of the letter and post it we would all be obliged.

And how is releasing those Barrett/Gray tapes looking? Any progress?

Thanks for the reference, RJ. But where did you get the detail about the process? Remember, you said: "He had placed an identical sample of the diary’s ink and paper into a diluted, unheated solution of acetone and water and watched as it quickly dissolved, so much so that left almost no ink on the paper".

Are you not alarmed that his claims regarding the freely soluble nature of the ink were so thoroughly underplayed by him? They ended the whole debate right there and then, even before Eddie Lyons had had a chance to follow Brian Rawes down the driveway at 7 Riversdale Road and tell him that he had found something important, and yet he made so little of it. Inexplicable?

Perhaps not quite as inexplicable as Nick Eastaugh's subsequent claim that Baxendale's claims that the ink was freely soluble was unsupported. That's what I thought. He just said it. He didn't justify it. In his original report, he just said it. What kind of science is that? Evidently pricked to say more by Harrison and Montgomery, he gave more detail away, but why wait to be pricked? It's fundamental to the case against the scrapbook's authenticity and he skipped it in his original report. Did he, though, in his letters of defence get confused between "free-flowing" and "freely soluble" and thereby remember the findings of some other report?

Nick Eastaugh completed his own report on the ink on October 2, 1992. I imagine it must be replete with complex analysis demonstrating the free solubility of the ink in the scrapbook - after all, it was only three months later (not eighteen months later of the Leeds analysis). Give me a moment ...

[rjpalmer]

Perhaps not quite as inexplicable as Nick Eastaugh's subsequent claim that Baxendale's claims that the ink was freely soluble was unsupported.

Yes, that's what Shirley Harrison claimed---but I want a source, please.

Can you show me where Eastaugh actually wrote this because I've never seen it and I have my doubts.

[Iconoclast]

Perhaps not quite as inexplicable as Nick Eastaugh's subsequent claim that Baxendale's claims that the ink was freely soluble was unsupported. That's what I thought. He just said it. He didn't justify it. In his original report, he just said it. What kind of science is that?

OMG, I've just realised I've given Baxendale a huge service by suggesting that he ever mentioned the so-called free solubility of the ink in his original report. He didn't. Not a word about solubility (never mind free solubility).

Yes, that's right. He had cracked the entire case wide open and then completely forgot to mention it in his report. Indeed, he fails to mention it in his letter to Doreen Montgomery dated July 3, 1992.

He only mentions it in subsequent letters to Montgomery and Harrison on July 9, 1992, and to Robert Smith on July 9, 1992 and again to Smith on August 20, 1992.

One can surely only conclude from this that he either thought the dramatic 'free solubility' he later relied on was quite irrelevant when he wrote his report or else that he simply got himself confused between 'free flowing' and 'freely soluble', thus potentially remembering an entirely unrelated analysis in his letters whilst he was a very very busy analyst.

Oh dear. Oh dear me.

Not a freaking word. I kid you not. Why are we even having this discussion?

[rjpalmer]

Are you not alarmed that his claims regarding the freely soluble nature of the ink were so thoroughly underplayed by him? They ended the whole debate right there and then.

Underplayed by him?

Are you joking, Ike? Have you been asleep for the past 25 years or have you just so convinced yourself that Melvin was evil that you have simply ignored everything he has written?

Let me warn you that you are entering very dangerous territory because this will revive bad blood.

Here's my take.

Baxendale wrote two follow-up letters to Harrison insisting the diary's ink was not behaving like an old ink should.

That is hardly unplaying it.

The response is that Harrison and Smith "lost all confidence" in Baxendale and decided to suppress his damning report. He was their consultant, they paid the bills, so he agreed that the report would not be released.

Harrison admits this in her book.

It was only later that the Sunday Times found out about this earlier analysis by Baxendale. When quizzed about it, Robert Smith said something along the lines that he had shoved Baxendale's report in a bottom desk drawer and had "forgotten about it."

Quite convenient, no?

Of course, Melvin Harris was convinced that Smith had deliberately suppressed a report that was so deeply damaging, but no doubt you will call that suggestion "evil."

Yet now you, too, seem a little shocked by it.

I've been trying to tell you this for the better part of five years, Ike, but apparently you have simply scrolled past my posts.

Your friend Lord Orsam has discussed it on his website as well.

Have a good day.

[Iconoclast]

Yes, that's what Shirley Harrison claimed---but I want a source, please.

Can you show me where Eastaugh actually wrote this because I've never seen it and I have my doubts.

According to my copy of Eastaugh's report dated October 2, 1992, he does not state that the claim that 'the ink was 'freely soluble' was unsupported'. In fairness to Harrison, what she states in her book is "Then I learned from another well respected scientific analyst, Dr Nicholas Eastaugh, that in tests on the ink which he had taken from several parts of the Diary he had, indeed, found iron and that the observation that the ink was 'freely soluble' was unsupported". At no point does she claim that Eastaugh had said this in his report, and this is actually not surprising as Eastaugh would not have been prompted to comment in such a way in his report given that Baxendale spectacularly failed to mention it in his own report! I assume that he said it to her when she presumably asked for his insight into the solubility of the ink (which his report does not comment on).

In the UK, the polis have to articulate the following caution to suspects: “You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence”. Let's be blunt, it's just as well this didn't relate to Baxendale's report as what he later relied on in the court of argument he completely failed to mention when he wrote up his report.

Honestly, I think we're done here?

Ike