October 10, 1941

Professor L. O. Brockway

Department of Chemistry

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Dear Lawrence:

As I mentioned in Chicago, Dr. Gordy has carried out the study of methyl thiocyanate and methyl isothiocyanate. He finds the values CH₃-S = 1.82, S-C = 1.70, C-N = 1.18, and angle uncertain, perhaps 101° for one molecule, and CH₃-N = 1.45 (assumed), N-C = 1.20, C-S = 1.58, and angle 148°. I don't remember your values in detail, but I think that they are pretty close to these.

I understand that your manuscript is all ready. What do you think of sending a copy to me, so that Gordy could write a brief statement regarding his results, without going into detail on the structure determination, this note of a page or two to follow directly behind your paper. I doubt that it would be worth while to try to incorporate our results and yours into a single paper, but on the other hand it might well be worth while to have a statement in the literature to the effect that the similar results have been obtained in two independent investigations. Gordy and I have been refining your work on methyl isocyanide. The methyl-nitrogen distance is about 0.04 Å shorter than the single bond distance. We haven't been able to decide yet whether the angle is 180° or about 160°; there is some evidence for the latter.

I was glad to see you in Chicago. Best regards,

Sincerely Yours

[Linus Pauling]

LP:jr