Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixiv. (1920), No. 3 13 



O O 



H 



H 



ch 3 - s ; r o 



H 



O O 



Formic acid. M ethane sulphonic acid. 



The formula for the carboxyl group, in the first of these, 

 is identical with that proposed by Hantzsch, and is for the 

 foregoing- reasons eminently acceptable. 



In Fig. 2 are indicated the stages which the writer con- 

 ceives to represent the conversion of the ketonic group (i), into 

 the ion (vi) of the enolic modification by the influence of 

 hydroxyl ions. It can be shown that any view involving the 

 assumption of addition of hydroxylion to the carbonyl group 

 would not be helpful, as this occurrence would rather tend to 

 weaken attachment of the bond between the two carbon atoms 

 and to strengthen the attachment of the hydrogen atom ; this 

 course is doubtless what is followed during, for example, the 

 alkaline hydrolysis of acetoacetic ester. The dissolving in 

 alkali of the ketonic form of a substance (as the sodium salt of 

 the enol form), is easy to understand when the principle of 

 "induced alternate polarities" is considered in conjunction 

 with a very natural extension of Thiele's theory of partial 

 valencies. 



-£- 



oii) 



o 



>6".::: 2~- & 



•OH 



\i 



(vi) 



t> 



X3-& \fOH >C 4, 



H-OH 



+ - 



x C~0---.Na 

 >C'4j::::0H 



Fig. 2. 



