The letters were listed by Joseph Needham in 1970 and labelled correspondingly. They comprise
A) a copy of a letter from Joseph Needham to Stapleton asking for his views on the origins of alchemy, 29 October 1950 (Attached to this letter is a note from Dorothea Singer providing Stapleton's address);
B) letter of reply from Stapleton, explaining that his 'interest in China goes back nearly 50 years, and arose out of trying to discover the derivation of the Arabic word 'Nushadur' for Sal-Ammoniac', providing a list of references headed 'Dateable Chinese knowledge of Metals', addressing the question 'When did the Yue-chi reach China?' and commenting on the arguments of Dubs, 8 November 1950;
(C) letter from Stapleton, commenting on (D), 18 November 1950;
(D) copy of a letter from Homer H Dubs of Oxford, commenting on the arguments put forward by Stapleton, stating 'My notion that the idea of the elixir came from Aryan tribes is only a hypothesis', 15 November 1950;
(D') letter from Dorothea Singer commenting on Stapleton's work, and discussing other matters, 27 February 1951;
(E) copy of a letter from Needham to Stapleton responding to Stapleton's letters and discussing the '硇 [Nao] problem', 21 March 1951;
(F) extract from a letter to Singer from Stapleton, about his planned reponse to (E), 11 July 1951;
(G) letter from Stapleton about 'Yueh-Chih' as transmitters of metallurgical knowledge, Yin and Yang and Zoroastrian dualism, visit of Chinese alchemists to Alexandria, cinnabar and malachite as magic pigments, 硇 [Nao] and its association with fire in nature, magic of hair etc., 26 November 1951.