September 4, 1941

Professor Arthur B. Lamb, Editor

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Chemical Laboratory of Harvard University

12 Oxford Street

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Lamb:

The paper by L. O. Brockway and N. R. Davidson on "The Molecular Structures of the Dimers of Aluminum Dimethyl Chloride, Aluminum Dimethyl Bromide, Aluminum Trimethyl and of Haxamethyl Disilane" seems to me to be a satisfactory investigation. There is only one point of question which I raise. As the authors point out, the ethane-like structure for the dimer of aluminum trimethyl which they report is not very reasonable chemically, and it might be expected that this substance would have a structure similar to that of the other aluminum compounds investigated, even though that structure also does not seem very reasonable for the methyl compound. The authors say that they have eliminated structures of this sort, but it seems to me that their study of these possibilities have been more thorough. If the authors feel, however, that their investigation has been sufficiently thorough so that there is no chance of error, I recommend publication of the paper. These substances are indeed very interesting ones.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jr