PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



AMERICAN ACADEMY 



OF 



ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. XXIV. 

 PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY. 



I. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF 

 HARVARD COLLEGE. 



ON THE ACTION OF SODIUM MALONIC ESTER ON 

 TRIBROMDINITROBENZOL. 



By C. Loring Jackson and W. S. Robinson. 



Presented June 13, 1888. 



In an earlier paper from this laboratory,* the preparation of tribrom- 

 trinitrobeuzol and its action with ammonia and aniline were described, 

 and the announcement was made that the study of the behavior of 

 this very reactive body would be continued. G. D. Moora and one of 

 us accordingly have taken up the action of sodium malonic ester upon 

 it, in the hope of substituting for each of the bromine atoms the radi- 

 cal of malonic ester, CH(COOC. 2 H.) 2 , and obtaining in this way a 

 substance which might have yielded interesting derivatives. As, 

 however, an entirely different product was the result of the reaction, 

 it seemed wiser to study it with the much more accessible tribrom- 

 dinitrobenzol, which acted in the same way, and to confine the work 

 on the trinitro compound, which at best can be obtained only with 

 difficulty, to those points in which the two substances showed a dif- 

 ferent behavior. In this paper, therefore, we give the results obtained 

 up to the present time from the action of sodium malonic ester on 



* These Proceedings, Vol. XXIII. p. 138. 



VOL. XXIV. (N. S. XVI.) 1 



