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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2013
The solid compounds of carbon and hydrogen form a class of substances to which chemists have scarcely, as yet, paid that attention which their importance and interest appear to merit. With the exception of naphthaline, very little is known regarding them, and it is remarkable that the numerous and varied products of decomposition obtained from that singular substance should not have induced a more minute examination of the kindred compounds, whose existence has been indicated by different chemists. The interest attaching to these compounds is all the greater because, according to their discoverers, several of them are isomeric, or at least polymeric, with naphthaline; and a more careful examination of them might be expected to throw some light on their intimate constitution, and relations to that body.
page 681 note * Annales de Chemie et de Physique, vol. 1. p. 187.
page 682 note * Annales dc Chemie et de Physique, vol. lx. p. 220.
page 682 note † Ibid., vol. lxxii. p. 415.
page 684 note * I have had frequent occasion to observe, that in the analysis of carbo-hydrogens with chromate of lead a considerable excess of hydrogen is often obtained. I at first attributed this to impurities in the chromate, but analyses made with a pure material, specially made for the purpose, showed the same excess. I have not examined into the cause of this phenomenon.
page 684 note † Erdmans Journal für Practische Chemie, vol. lxxiii. p. 282.
