From: M Hutchinson

Sent: January 23, 2004 9:30 AM

To: Stephen Mcintyre

Subject: NATURE: Manuscript 2004-01-14277

Dear Dr McIntyre,

We have received your communication arising from the recent paper in Nature by Mann et al. This message is to let you know that we have forwarded this to the criticised authors for their response, as is our policy on these occasions (see our guidelines to authors of Communications Arising on www.nature.com/nature/submit/ ).

Once we have received this response, we may seek the advice of external referees on how best to proceed.

You will also see from our guidelines that Communications Arising are only published as such if they represent a scientific advance over the original paper; critical comments such as yours may instead be addressed in the form of a published correction/clarification from the criticised authors, if this is recommended by our referees. In this event, your contribution is likely to be acknowledged.

We will be in contact again once we have reached a final decision.

Yours sincerely,

Rosalind Cotter

Editor, Communications Arising