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Recent Books
An Introduction to Modem Organic Chemistry. L. A. Come, B.Sc. (Lond.), A. I. C. Senior Chemistry Master, Batley Grammar School. Longmans, Green 452 and Co., 1929, New York. xv pp. 13.5 X 19 nn. Figures 78, portraits 10. $2.50.
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chemical reactions involved and the theoretical considerations. At the end of each chapter are pertinent questions on the material covered and a t the end of the hook are several pages of miscellaneous questions. A brief review of the history of organic chemistry is given as the last chapter in PART111. The author emphasizes in the preface the care that he has taken to give in the laboratory experiments details gained by actual experiene. He claims that the experiments are more easily and more successfully carried out by the average student than the experiments found in many of the other elementary manuals. The hook is well written and contains excellent illustrations of the apparatus t o be used in the experiments as well as of certain industrial equipment, also ten portraits of famous chemists. I n the United States few, if any, of the ,teachers of organic chemistry attempt to present the subject as outlined in this hook.' Such a plan might well be tried out in institutions where the facilities and the organization make i t practical.
This new elementary book on organic chemistry presents the subject in a somewhat different manner from that usually found. I t is a text and manual combined and includes the details for 107 laboratory experiments. The book opens with PAnr' I, "Introductory Study of Some Simple Compounds" which contains the following chapters: Ethyl Alcohol; Some Reactions of Ethyl Alcohol; Further Reactions of Ethyl Alcohol; Analysis of Organic Compounds; Empirical Formulas: Determination of Molecular Weights and Molecular Formulas; Acetic Acid; Structure of Acetic Acid and Ethyl Alcohol. PARTI1takes up the study of the aliphatic compounds and PARTI11 of the aromatic compounds, under the expected headings. is lareelv evoerimental in PART I- -character and starts out in Chapter I with an experiment on the fractional distillation of alcohol followed by a brief discussion of distillation in general. An experiment on How to Teach Secondary Chemistry and the preparation of ethyl alcohol from cane Allied Sciences. HATTIE D. F. HAUB, sugar comes next, followed by the study Roosevelt High School, Oakland, Caliof the properties of ethyl alcohol. This fornia. Harr Wagner Publishing co., leads the student t o a consideration of San Francisco, 1929. xiii f 292 Pp. boiling points and thermometer correc14 illustrations. 19.5 cm. X 13.5 cm. tions. The following 9 En ~-pages are devoted W*."". to a discussion of fermentation. The object of the author in writing this The second and third chapters in PART I aresimilarly presented, theformeropening book, as stated in the introduction, is t o with an experiment on theaction of sodium help the teacher by enlivening the chemistry course and removing some of the on- alcohol. and the latter with an merit an the preparation of ether. In drudgery. Because of omissions of essential ingeneral, the procedure just mentioned is characteristic of the whole book. An formation and of a few assumptions that experiment is always carried out first and are hardly justifiable, one wonders how a then the student is taught about the criticism of this book should bc made. 482
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