The results obtained from ultracentrifugal, and spectrophotometric measurements, involving rapid mixing experiments, seem to indicate the following conclusions: whereas, in the lower pH ranges considered within the transition region, the denaturation process is limited by the first time constant, this same constant becomes extremely short at higher pH. On the other hand the fact that, in the higher pH range, the second and third time constants do not coincide (the time to unwind a single T2 DNA molecule being at least one order of magnitude shorter than the time required for bulk denaturation to be reached) suggests that in this pH range the overall denaturation rate is limited by a statistical process governing the initiation of unwinding.