OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 317 



XXII. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY 

 OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 



ON THE ACTTOX OF WATER UPON TRIBROMTRLNl- 

 TROBENZOL AXD TRIBROMDIXITROBEXZOL.* 



By C. Loring Jackson and W. H. Warren. 



Presented June 15, 1892. 



In an article f recently published, C. A. Lobry de Bruyn de- 

 scribes the action of an aqueous solution of sodic carbonate upon 

 the unsymmetrical trinitrobenzol (1, 2, 4) which produces the 

 dinitrophenol (OH, 1, 2, 4) by the replacement of a nitro group by 

 hydroxyl. After we had shown in an earlier paper J that the nitro 

 groups can be removed from tribromtrinitrobenzol by sodic alcohol- 

 ates, M. Lobry de Bruyn suggested to us in the most courteous way 

 that it would be interesting to see whether an aqueous solution of 

 sodic carbonate would not have a similar effect on this substance, 

 which seemed not improbable after his work already cited. The 

 following paper contains an account of the work we undertook in 

 accordance with this suggestion, the results of which can be briefly 

 summarized as follows. Symmetrical tribromtrinitrobenzol (melt- 

 ing point 285°) is converted by boiling with sodic carbonate and 

 water into a mixture of the sodium salts of trinitrophloroglucine 

 and a tribromdinitrophenol, C 6 Br 3 (X0 2 ) 2 OH, melting at 194°, 

 which, so far as we can find, has not been described as yet. Tri- 

 bromdinitrobenzol (melting point 192°, made from symmetrical tri- 

 brombenzol) gave under the same conditions a dibromdinitrophenol 

 which melts at 147-148°, a melting point almost identical with 

 that of the only other dibromdinitrophenol known (146°-146°.5), 



* The work described in this paper formed part of a thesis presented to the 

 Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University for the degree of Doctor of 

 Philosophy, by W. H. Warren. 



t Rec. Trav. Chem., IX. 185. 



t These Proceedings, XXV. 164. 



