JACKSON AND BOOS. — COLORED COMPOUNDS. 175 



er's theory in regard to these bodies should be abandoned, and that they 

 should be considered as formed by the addition of the sodic alcoholate 

 to the aromatic nitro compound. Whether the alcoholate is added to 

 the carbon of the benzol ring or to the nitro group cannot be deter- 

 mined with our present kuowledge, but possibly a way has been 

 opened to decide this question by the discovery of the addition com- 

 pounds formed from quinone and potassic ethylate or hydrate described 

 by Astre,* CeH^OaKOCsHg and C6H4O2KOH, and that from chloranil 

 aud sodic methylate, CeCl^O^NaOCHg, obtained by H. A. Torrey and 

 one of us.f These substances, by their striking colors, their formulas, 

 mode of formation, and slight stability, seem to be related to the class of 

 compoiinds discussed in this paper, and, if this connection can be proved, 

 would show that the alcoholate is added to carbon and not to the nitro 

 group. In continuing work in this direction an attempt will be made 

 to find such substances not derived from quinones, as in quinones a 

 special method of attachment of sodic alcoholate is possible, forming the 

 hemiacetals. This line of work will be pursued in this Laboratory during 

 the coming year. It is worth mentioning that Astre independently of 

 Victor Meyer explained the constitution of his compounds by supposing 

 the hydrogen on the quinone ring had been replaced by potassium, 

 thus, C6H3KO2C2H5OH, a hypothesis which is inadmissible, as our 

 derivative from chloranil undoubtedly belongs to the same class, and here 

 (C6Cl402NaOCH3) no such arrangement of the atoms is possible. The 

 details of this argument will be found in the paper by H. A. Torrey and 

 one of us,t already mentioned. 



By the decomposition of the corresponding colored compounds with an 

 acid the following new picric ethers were obtained : — 



C6H2(N02)30C3H^, melting point 43° ; 

 Cefl2(NOo)30C5Hn, melting at 68°-69°; 



this was made from ordinary isoamylalcohol ; 



and C6H2(N02)30CH2G6H5, melting at 115.° 



vation is of little weight in favor of the theory, since the substance at the same time 

 underwent a far-reaching decomposition, of which the alcohol may have been a 

 product, instead of being alcohol of crystallization. 



* C. R., CXXI. 530 (1896). 



t These Proceedings, XXXIII. 167. 



