Configurational Relationships of Methylethyl

The configurational relationship of dextro-methylethyl carbinol to dextro-lactic acid has been established.’ The establishment of the relationship of the higher members of the homologous series of alcohols to the same reference substance will permit the correlation of the configurations of the alcohols among themselves. The present paper contains a report on the results of the efforts in this direction; namely, the results of experiments leading to conclusions regarding the configurational relationship of levomethylpropyl carbinol to levo-lactic acid. The task was facilitated by the fact that the configurational relationship of 4-hydroxyvaleric acid to lactic acid had already been established. Hence, it was necessary only to correlate 4-hydroxyvaleric acid with methylpropyl carbinol. The following set of reactions led to the desired end.