REVIEWS
BOOK
Chemical Pvinciples in Practice
Editor: W. F. KIEFFER College of Woorter Woarter, Ohio
Edited by Jewy A. Bell. AddisonWesley Publishing Co., Reading, Mass., 273 pp. Figs. and July, 1967. xi tables. 21.5 X 28 em. $4.50. Paperbound.
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I suppose that if you were to choose two ehemistrv.. ~rofessorsa t random and ask f w their idens wn~vntingtlte appmpriute content of a fim year colleye lnlmratury rmrir, yuu m ~ l d pnhably tina von.iiderable disagreement. I t seems rather surprising therefore that most primary college tions a t the end of each chapter should Chemistry laboratory texts in the lsst decade or so, prove extremely useful. have had s certain "sameness" about B. Richard Siebrino. Univer~it,v ~~~-~ " of -The chapter on the inorganic chemistry them. "Chemioal Principles in Practice," Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Macmillan Co., of carbon leads into section three, a edited by Jerry A. Bell of the University New York, 1967. viii 743 pp. Figs. two-chapter organic chemistry unit. I n of California, Riverside, is most decidedly and tables. 16 X 24 cm. 88.95. this 56 page unit, the chemistry of hydronot in the preceding category; in fact this carbons and their derivetives is discussed. text offers a radical and refreshing deparThis text is intended to provide an up to Optical and cis-trans isomerism are inture from the "classical" approach. date, broad treatment of chemistry suitcluded. The sigma and r bonding for For several years now colleges offering able for the firsbyear college student in s benzene is presented. Eleven classes of advanced freshman chemistry lecture two semester or three quarter course. The monofunctional derivatives are presented courses have been faced with the problem author states in the preface that he feels and a very brief presentation of protein of providing suitably challenging labor* equations, stoichiometry, and chemical and carbohydrate chemistry is included. tory experiments. I n many cases exequilibrium as well as descriptive and h% Solution chemistry is covered in section periments have been oustom-made for the torical aspects of chemistry are an imporfour. This unit includes a n introductory individual courses because of the lack of a tant part of the introductory chemistry chapter about properties of solutions, a suitable text. For instructors in such course. The hook wnsists of 32 chapters chapter to develop acid-base chemistry courses, and for those wishing to upgrade divided into seven sections. and ionimtion equilibris, and a. chapter and update more conventional oourses, Section one is a 216page coverage of for the presentation of the solubility prod"Chemical Principles in Practice" deprinciples. Electronio properties are reuct concepts. serves thorough contemplation. lated to the periodic table and to bond Chemistry of metals and metal ions is This well written and readable manual types, a brief wverage of chemical nopresented in the six-chapter unit five. contains some 33 experiments under eleven menclature is included, and one chapter is This unit is organized according to analytidifferent headings ranging from somewhat devoted to chemicd equations. Worked cal groups of qualitative analysis to aid in conventional gravimetrio analysis to simexamples of problems are in the text mathe presentation of qualitative analysis in ple yet sophisticated. experimentation terial, including reasons far eachstep in the the first year chemistry course. with nuclear magnetic resonance. Seemsolution of the problem. Industrial processes are discussed in the ingly routine experiments such as preSection two presents the descriptive four-chapter unit six. Unit seven is s cipitation, are given an interesting twist, chemistry of the non-metals. This eightseparate chapter on nuclear transformsin this oase by use of radioactive isotopes. chapter, 148 page unit, starts with the tions. Qualitative inorganic snslysis is comchemistry of oxygen. Other chapters This book places more emphasis and pletely absent, thus continuing the trend cover hydrogen, water, sulfur and its concern for the historical aspects of of recent years. Experiments are outlined compounds, phosphorus and its comchemistry and for descriptive chemistry which should go well with courses stressing pounds, the halogens and their compounds, while emphasizing equations, stoichiomstructure and bonding, kinetics and/or and inorganic carbon, silicon, and boron. etry and equilibria. It should prove thermodynamics. Some of the experiI n general, non-metals are presented in to he a welwme addition to the available ments have been published previously in terms of occurrence, history, laboratory freshman college chemistry texts. THIS JOURNAL and others have been culled preparation, physical properties, chemical properties, and wmpounds. The brief ALFREDT . ERICSON from various unpublished sources, several in both categories were devised hy the hist,ory is interesting and the study quesKansas State Teachers College editor and Leonard Nash of Harvard UniEmporia versity. The editor (Bell) states that his own classes complete about one half of the experiments in a. full year general chemistry course with two 3-hour laboratory sessions -Reviewed in this Issue per week. I t can be deduced from this that most of the experiments last for more than one lab session giving an unstrucB. Il'iehard SSiebrzng, Chemistry tured pattern which seems desirable in culturing student creativity. At the Jerry A . Bell, editor, Chemical Principles in Practice same time a large amount of background material is required which demands a great C. B. Anderson and J . I,. Hawes, Baiie Experimental Chemistry: A Laboratory deal of the instruotor(s). Probably the Alanual for Beginning Students text is most germane for an integrated lecture-lab format. Stanlelj W . Angrist and Loren G . Hepler, Order and C h a a e L a w s of Energy and The textual msterial is hard to find Entropy fault with; the following are just s few minor personal grievances. Several of the S.B. Hannau, Solid-state Chemistry kinetic experiments involve organic m e terials, e.g., ethyl diszoscetate, cyclo. I . K . Galz~.ey,Chemistry of Solids hexanone, eto., implying some organic chemistry background. I t seems to the V. Theilbeirner, Synthetic Methods of Organic Chemistry reviewer that an introductory experiment
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276 / Journal of Chemical Education
