304 



can be prepared, the aqueous solutions of which will of course 

 contain an equal number of dextro- and laevogyrate ions. 



Now if with a sufficient current-density, an electrolysis of this 

 solution is started, both these ions will split off carbon-dioxide to 

 form an ether of the type: 



COO Ale 



YCX 



YCX 

 I 

 COOAlc 



and this decomposition, going oh with equal 'velocities for both 

 kinds of stereometrical configurations, will therefore necessarily 

 lead to an optically wactive product. 



If however this electrolysis be started in a very strong mag- 

 netic field, the lines of force of which are parallel to the direction 

 of the current, and especially, if the metal Me be so chosen as 

 to increase the magnetic susceptibility of the solution, there may 

 be a good chance that under these dissymmetrical conditions, 

 the electrochemical decomposition of both enantiomorphously 

 related kinds of ions no longer occurs with the same velocity. 

 In that case an optically active product might be obtained, if 

 the process be stopped before the decomposition of the substance 

 present is completed, and an excess of one of the optically active 

 components of the ether might be found in the product finally 

 obtained. 



Experiments of this kind, especially with ferric salts of organic 

 acids, have already been started. 



14. Our ' ideas concerning the problem of asymmetric syn- 

 thesis in nature, have been much changed during the last decades. 



Continual research leads us to believe that the hope need not 

 be given up of overcoming within a not too distant future all 

 experimental difficulties, and the dynamics of the asymmetrical 

 synthesis will then be as accessible to us, as those of our common 

 laboratory-processes. 



If these experiments should some day have a real positive 

 result, we shall then completely have solved one of the most 

 fundamental riddles in the chemical and biological sciences, and 

 we shall effectually have contributed to the final understanding 

 of one of the most vexing phenomena which have puzzled scientists 



