RECENT statistical studies suggest a relationship between the increasing incidence of lung cancer and smoking. This implies carcinogenic activity by the smoke (Doll and Hill, 1950;Hammond and Horn, 1954;Wynder and Graham, 1950). Accordingly, for several years this laboratory has been investigating the nonvolatile fractions of the smokes of cigarettes, cigarette paper, and tobacco for possible known carcinogens. The statistical studies (Hammond and Horn, 1954) on the relation of lung cancer and smoking pointed especially at cigarette smoking and indicated little or no relation to cigar and pipe smoking. One major difference between these types of smoking is, of course, the cigarette paper. Initially, it was thought the carcinogenic activity might be wholly due to the paper, and we were thus stimulated to start with the paper alone.Indications of fluorescence, characteristic of the benzanthracene derivatives, was first noted by Carroll and Rand (unpublished observations) in the tars from cigarette paper smoke. The fluorescence was found by us to be due to 3,4-benzpyrene.The technique for burning the paper was not designed to simulate the conditions of actual cigarette smoking. The paper was smouldered in a stream of air (Fig. 2), the highest temperature reached at the burning front (650-950°C.) being in the same range as that attained in a cigarette during inhalation (Wynder, Graham and Croninger, 1953). It was felt that the combusion products would vary with temperature of burning but that qualitatively the same products would be formed. Work subsequently published by Cooper and Lindsey (Cooper and Lindsey, 1954; Cooper, Lindsey and Waller, 1954) on cigarettes made wholly of cigarette paper without tobacco and smoked in an apparatus designed to simulate actual smoking conditions supports this assumption; 3,4-benzpyrene was obtained by these workers although in smaller yields than obtained by us. Additional substantiation was provided by the work on the whole cigarette; the quantity of 3,4-benzpyrene produced was in line with that expected from the results on the paper and tobacco burned separately.Subsequently we found 3,4 benzpyrene in the smokes of tobacco, cigarettes, and cigars. The cigarettes and cigars were smoked in a smoke sampling apparatus designed to approximate average conditions of actual smoking.Much of the work reported here is a duplication with some extension of similar work by Lindsey and Cooper and is further confirmation of their results. ' * Material from this paper has been presented at