LOURENS G. M. BAAS-BECKING 655 



if the reaction is monomolecular; 



g" — (a — agQ" 

 r ^ a", (a- x')- ^2) 



T" ^ a" - {a - x")" 

 a".ia-x"y 



if the reaction is polymolecular. On the assumption that A' is the 

 starting point of the reaction we get 



1 a 



K' = — ■ In 



and 



or, more general 



and 



T' + T" a- X 



^"-r^-'-J^' '^ 



1 a" — (a — «')" 



r + r° a'^.ia- x'Y 



1 ^,n_(,_,..)n 



r"+r° a^.{a-x"y ' 



Equations (1), (2), (3), and (4) give 



K^ {T" ^ T°)T' 



K" ^ iT'+ T)T" 



or, if we take the determinations at regular intervals T" = IT' and 



K' 'JT' A- T^ 



— = • K" > K' unless r° = or if there is any latency 



K" IT' + 2r° 



time the reaction velocity will increase. 



In the work of both Bredig and his coworkers^- ^ and Senter^ the 



1 a 



formula K = - In is used, which gives the reason for the increase 



t a — X 



in the K values. Waentig and Steche* use the modification K = 



1 , a—Xf). 



In in which Xq is the amount decomposed at a certain time 



t—to a—x 



T. They do not use the starting point in their calculations. To 

 find out whether the constant K values obtained by these authors 



