Linda T. writes that Stephen Jones, by the way he quoted Mark Guscin, gives the impression that Kim Dreisbach stated that travertine aragonite is further proof that the Shroud is that of Jesus.

Maybe he did. “But if he did not,” Linda points out, “then this is an unfortunate mistake because of a missing single quote lost to stop points dot-dot-dotting.”

She is right. Here is what Fr. Kim said (going back to pp.78-79 of "The Oviedo Cloth," by Mark Guscin in order to eliminate the stop points or dot-dot-dotting as Linda calls it):

image[M]icroscopic dirt particles taken from the foot area during the 1978 examination were eventually analysed by Joseph Kohlbek at the Hercules Aerospace Laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah and found to be travertine aragonite – a rare form of calcite also found near the Damascus Gate (i.e. the one closest to Golgotha) in Jerusalem. That finding was later confirmed by Dr Levi Setti using an electron probe microscope at the Enrico Fermi Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.

And here is what Guscin wrote as a reaction to Fr. Kim’s words:

imageThis interesting information is further proof that the Shroud is that of Jesus, because no forger, either pious or impious, nobody who made a portrait of Christ, for whatever reason, would ever think of including such details, which would have been ignored anyway until this present age with its microscopic possibilities.

“I just wanted to be clear,” wrote Linda.

And that does make it clearer. I had read right past it. That said, I would not call it proof, but evidence. Mark’s point that no medieval forger would have anticipated modern forensic instruments was almost lost by the accidental run-on. That point may well be more important than agreement of chemical signatures to a specific sample from the Jerusalem environs.