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Recent Books Analytical Processes.
T. B. SMITH, A.R.C.S., B.Sc., Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry a t the University of Shefield. Longmans, Green and Ca., New Yark City, Edward Arnold and Co., London. 373 pp. 51 England, 1929. viii figures. 16 tables. 14 X 21.5 cm. $5.00.
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The statement is sometimes made that any chemist can carry out a procedure in quantitative analysis who is able to follow directions. Rather than to d e w the halftruth in such a stand it is better to substitute for it the following statement. No one can carry out an intelligible quantitative analysis who is only able to follow directions. In "Analytical Processes. A PhysicoChemical Interpretation," Smith has supplied the justification for the latter of the two abave-mentioned opposite contentions and has effectively emphasized why quantitative analysis pracedures should not he considered as merely technical directions. The text is an excellent contribution to the field of quantitative analysis to be used in connection with the teaching of advanced courses of inorganic analysis and as an aid to students engaged in the solution of analytical research problems or other research programs in which analytical factors play a major r8le. This text should appeal to the instructor of elementary quantitative analysis in keeping the minds of the better dass of students, whose progress warrants it, supplied with reference material of select and stimulating nature yet not beyond the student's reserve power of assimilation. The book is divided into two parts with a discussion of approximately twenty typical processes of analytical chemistry. The discussion dealt with in the first part covers the theoretical foundations of these processes and the second part a critical examination of some of these theories. The &st part devotes eight chapters or
about one-third af the material to gravimetric precipitations and associated operations. Four chapters follow dealing with volumetric applications, with chapter 13 dealing with electro-analysis. Part I is concluded by a chapter on recent advances in a typical gravimetric processthe influence of H-ion concentration on sulfide precipitation. The last third of the hook dealing with a more critical examination of some of the theories employed includes solubility relationships, colloidal phenomena, oxidation and reduction reaction, and complex ion formation. Two short appendixes conclude this volume, one dealing with apparatus for quantitative analysis and the other with indicator data. The treatment of gravimetric operations involves in the main the application of the von Weimarn coefficient of precipitation velocity and its use in interpreting results from precipitation under different experimental conditions including the formation of colloidal precipitates. The specific examples chosen are the precipitation of barium and lead sulfates and ferric hydroxide. The chapter on ignition of precipitates is to be welcomed and is aU too brief. The remainder of part one consists of material the main portion of which can be quite as satisfactorily obtained from a small group of current reference texts and the treatment is not materially different. The book has been very satisfactorily arranged and is full of indications that the author is fully informed as to the needs for supplementary reading as an adjunct to the study of quantitative analysis as presented in the usual type of texthook on the subject. The only real criticism it seems that can be applied to this text is the fact that it has heen so well written that it makes heavy reading.
G.FREDERICK SMITH U~twasr~ ORy ILLrwors URBAN.% ILLINOIS
