138 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



IX. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF 

 HARVARD COLLEGE. 



ON TRIBROMTRINITROBENZOL. 

 By C. Loring Jackson and John F. Wing. 



Presented June 15, 1887. 



The following paper contains the description of the first results of 

 a research on tribromtrinitrobenzol and its derivatives, which we are 

 obliged to publish now, as on account of the departure of one of us 

 from Cambridge we cannot go on with the work together. Had it 

 not been for this, we should have postponed its publication until our 

 experiments on the reduction of triamidotrinitrobenzol had led to 

 some definite result. At present we are able to describe only the 

 tribromtrinitrobenzol, triamidotrinitrobenzol, and trianilidotrinitroben- 

 zol, with several preliminary experiments on other substances, which 

 we mention in order to reserve the further study of this subject for 

 one of us, who will continue it in this laboratory. 



The tribromtrinitrobenzol has never been described, for although 

 Koerner* in 1874 stated that he had obtained it by the action of a 

 mixture of boiling fuming nitric and sulphuric acids on tribromdinitro- 

 benzol, he gave no description of it, saying that this must be postpoued 

 till a later paper. Some years afterward (in 1879) Wurster and 

 Beran,f after many attempts to prepare the substance according to 

 Koerner, came to the conclusion that it could not be made in this 

 way, as, even when Koerner's mixture of acids was heated with tri- 

 bromdinitrobenzol to 220° in a sealed tube, they got only a very 

 small amount of a substance melting from 200° to 220°, the greater 

 part of the product being unaltered tribromdinitrobenzol. As this 

 paper has remained unanswered by Koerner up to the present time, 

 that is, for eight years, we have assumed that he has abandoned the. 

 subject, and have accordingly taken it up, our attention being called 

 to it by the results obtained in the study of the action of nitric acid on 



* Gazz. Chim., 1874, p. 425. t Ber. d. ch. G., 1879, p. 1821. 



