Thomas Cahill became involved with research on the Gutenberg Bible in the 1980s while he was director of the Crocker Nuclear Lab at the University of California, Davis. He, Richard Schwab, and a number of other colleagues applied nuclear physics to history by developing a non-destructive technique of analysis that used a beam of accelerated protons to examine the ink of the Gutenberg Bible. By this means they were able to establish for the first time the chemical composition of the printing ink used by Gutenberg. This ink was and remains extraordinarily glossy and black, thanks to high levels of copper and lead, a formulation known only to Gutenberg and utterly distinct from other printers who followed him in the fifteenth century. Cahill and his colleagues carried out experiments on further copies of the Gutenberg Bible and were able to shed light on their printing process. Their research program became known as the Crocker Historical and Archeological Project, and they went on to apply their method of analysis to other documents, such as the Vinland Map and the Freeman’s Oath. Much of this research has been published in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. The material in this collection consists of Professor Cahill's research papers and other data generated from these experiments.