BOOK REVIEWS some question. There is no comment concerning this discrepancy in the "Comparison with other acids" subheading. The strength of this handbook is its function as a key to the literature. The chemist can quickly get an idea about t h e properties of the compound in question, but he must, go back to the literature cited to find the methods of obtaining and the limitations oi the data.
J. D. REINHSIMER College of Wooster Wwster, Ohio
Chimie G6nirale et .brig& de Chimie Minirole
P . Colmanl Masson & Cie, Paris, 565 pp. Figs France, 1960. xv and tables. 18 X 25 em. Cartonni. toile 45 NF.
+
This is a complete revision of the author's 1957 text, "Introduction B la Chimie G6n6rale." There is no American textbook counterpart for this type of hook. It reminds the reader of an introductory physical ohemistry book an the level of Glasstone and Lewis uzith some inorganic divertissements a la Sienko and Plane. A %-page "AbdgB" does just that for descriptive inorganic rhemistry. Students who want to learn or practice
A142 / Journal of Chemical Education
their chemical French will he delighted t o find a book like this one. Abundant uncluttered figures and tables, liberal use of ionic equations, and pleasing alternation of bold face and italic types styles make it an appealingpr?sentation of interestingchemistry.
The Discovery of Bromine
Prepared by Lao. E. Klopfer, Harvard University, Cambridge. History of Seienee Cases for High Schools, Csse 3. Published in cooperation with the Department of School Services and Publications, Wesleyan University, Mid24 pp. dletown, Connecticut, 1960. 22 X 28 em. Paperbound. The Chemistry of Fixed Air
Prepared by Leo. E. Klopfer, Harvard University, Cambridge. History of Science Cases for High Schools, Case 8. Published in cooperation with the Department of School Services and Publications, Wesleyan University, Middlet o m , Connectiout, 1960. 28 pp. 22 X 28 cm. Paperbound. When James Conant returned to Harv w d from his wartime duties with the government, he set himself the tmk of re-thinking the science education of the future lawyer, congressman, and business man. His hook "On Understanding Science" wa? an early result of these
labors follomd by the Case Histories in the experimental sciences published separately and in two collective volumes by Harvard University Press. Leo. Klopfer of the Harvard Graduate School of Education has now carried the case history approach into the science currirula of high schools. The cases are new, not modifications of the Conant studies. They are brief, the narrative portions of the cases here reported, occupying 9 and 13 pages respectively. Each narrative page is paired with a page for ansuers to questions. The narrative is f o l l o ~ e dby ~xoerimentsand exercises. the former ucror reported in the text. Since these represent, in the cases under discussion, the usual laboratory experiments on the chemistry of bromine, hydrogen bromide, and the bromides on the one hand, of carbon dioxide, carbonates, and hydroxides on the other, these cases may provide a way of instilling new life into some of the most classical of descriptive laboratory oxperiments. The cases present the experiments largely as "open-ended" ones, not as cookbook prescriptions. The editor lists as the ohief interest in these cases, to find out as much as possilde about: "The methods used by scientists; the means by which science advance8 and the conditions under which it flourishes; the role of scientists as people and the personal characteristics of scientists; the interplay of social, economic, technological
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