The ionization in aqueous sulphuric acid of thiolactams consisting of five-, six-, and sevenmembered rings has been studied. With increasing concentration of acid the ionization ratio increases more rapidly than ho. A possible explanation involving the hydration of the thiolactam is given. Changes in the basicity of thiolactams with ring size parallel changes previously found for lactams.By analogy with the resonance structures of simple amides (I), the structure of lactams (I; X = 0 ) would be expected to be made up by a 60y0 contribution from structure Ia (X = 0 ) and 40% contribution from structure Ib (X = 0), although the relative weights of the contributions could be altered somewhat by ring strain (2). Thiolactams (I; X = S) have higher dipole moments (3), and so should be represented to a preponderant extent by the dipolar form I b (X = S). The high polarity of the thiolactams (I; X = S, n = 3 , 4 , and 5) may in part account for the fact that they are solids a t room temperature while the corresponding lactams (I; X = 0, n = 3, 4, and 5 ) are liquid, and that (as postulated later in this paper) they appear to be more extensively hydrated in a-queous solution than are the lactams.It is probable that lactams and thiolactams in strong acid are protonated on the oxygen or sulphur atom to give the conjugate acids (11; X = 0 or S) (4). Consequently i t became of interest to compare the basicities of the two classes of compounds. I t seemedpossible that in spite of the greater intrinsic basicity of oxygen as compared with sulphur (cf. OH-and SH-), the greater negative charge on the sulphur of thiolactams would cause them to be more basic than lactams. We have accordingly determined the protonation constants of the thiolactams (I; X = S, n = 3, 4, and 5) for comparison with the protonation constants reported for the lactams (I; X = 0 , n = 3, 4, and 5) (2).