Combined chemical and physical investigations of various high-polymeric substances have led to the conviction that they are built up of very long chain-like molecules (3,14,27,48,68,98,100,101). All kinds of information could be obtained regarding the average length of these chains, its distribution over the individual molecules, and its change by different chemical or physical treatment. In connection with these results the question was put forward (36,37,43,50,51,63,65) as to how the mechanical and optical properties of fibers and films consisting of high-molecular substances may be explained by the molecular picture of their fine structure. The first attempts to tackle this problem led to two divergent suggestions, which we can regard as extreme opposing points of view from which we may visualize our problem.One can start with the idea that the crystallized regions which have been found by x-ray analysis,-the so-called micellae,-have the form of longish rod-like crystals with more or less regular surfaces and are arranged in the fibers or films similarly to the bricks in a wall. Figure la explains schematically this conception, which we might call the extreme micellarstructure. It involves a very distinct difference between the space inside the crystal lattice (a, b) and outside of it (c, d); intramolecular and intermolecular 1 Presented at the ninety-seventh meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in Baltimore, Maryland, April, 1939.