OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 68 



IV. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF 

 HARVARD COLLEGE, 



RESEARCHES ON THE SUBSTITUTED BENZYL COM- 

 POUNDS. 



NINTH PAPER. 



THE SYNTHESIS OF ANTHRACENE AND PHENANTHRENE 

 FROM ORTHOBROMBENZYLBROMIDE. 



By C. Loring Jackson and J. Fleming White. 



Presented May 14, 1879. 



Discovery of Anthracene. 



The first notice of anthracene (under the name paranaphtaline) ap- 

 pears in a paper * on compounds of hydrogen and carbon, published 

 by Dumas and Laurent in 1832. They obtained it in the fractional 

 distillation of coal-tar from the portions with the highest boiling-point, 

 but did not succeed in purifying it, as is shown by the melting-point 

 180°, and the formula Cj^Hq. Laurent,t in 1835, studied its oxida- 

 tion product " paranaphtalese " (anthrachinone), and in 1837 t pro- 

 posed the name anthracene for it; but neither of these papers, nor 

 one§ also published by Laurent, in 1839, gives a satisfactory account 

 of the hydrocarbon, as the quantity at his disposal was too small for 

 complete purification. 



The first accurate characterization of anthracene is due to 

 Fritzsche.il who, in 1857, obtained from coal-tar a hydrocarbon with 

 the formula Cj^Hj^, and melting-point 210°, forming a picric acid com- 

 pound melting at 170°, but he did not identify it with the anthracene 

 of Laurent. This was reserved for Anderson,T[ who in 1861 re- 



* Ann. Chim. Pliys., 1. 187. t Ibid., Ix. 220. 



} Ibid., Ixvi. 149. § Ibid., Ixxii. 415. 



II St. Petersburg Acad. Ber., 1857. Journ. pr. Ch., Ixxiii. 286. 

 1 Ann. Chem. Pharm , cxxii. 294. 



