November 7, 1939
Dear Professor Taylor:
Thank you for your letter and the interesting comparisons between the styrene and cyclooctatetraene derivatives.  I still think it quite probable that there may have been some such rearrangement at the high temperatures at which your experiments were carried out, as well as the early of Willstatter's and Waser's experiments, cyclooctatriene, the next-to-last stage of unsaturation, was reduced to cyclooctate, which was identified.  And in the experiments I carried out this hydrocarbon was also isolated and its chain length was shown by oxidation, so that the saturated derivative could not have been ethylocyclohexane.  Moreover, in the new Beilstein this hydrocarbon is stated to be a liquid.
Nevertheless the comparisons you adduce are quite startling, but I think they prove only that a re-examination of the whole question would lead to interesting results, regardless of the outcome.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Heidelberger