When we vary the moduli of a compactification it may become entropical
ly favourable at some point for a state of branes and strings to rearr
ange itself into a new configuration. We observe that for the elementa
ry string with two large charges such a rearrangement happens at the '
correspondence point' where the string becomes a black hole. For small
er couplings it is entropically favourable for the excitations to be v
ibrations of the string, while for larger couplings the favoured excit
ations are pairs of solitonic 5-branes attached to the string; this he
lps resolve some recently noted difficulties with matching emission pr
operties of the string to emission properties of the black hole. We al
so examine the change of state when a black hole is placed in a space-
time with an additional compact direction, and the size of this direct
ion is varied. These studies suggest a mechanism that might help resol
ve the information paradox. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V
.