over-all chain mechanism, the mathematical treatment of chain reactions and finally chapters containing detailed aecounts of selected examples of spantaneously explosive reactions and addition polymerieation mechanisms. In the reviewer's minion Professor 1)aintou has rltwly realized his objectives of providi~.g str irrtrod.~etionto the subject for s t ~ d e n t sat the undergraduatc or postgraduate level, and a t the same time providing a stimulus to researchers in reaction kinetics and allied areas to delve further into the oriainalliterrtture on chain reactions. In short, chemists in all fields of kinetics, photochemistry, pyrolytic reactions, polymerization processes, explosions, etc., will find that "Chain Reactions" ia one of those hooks that iis a "must" in one's personal technical library. J. N. PITTS. JR. U~lVsRsl~ OF r
CALIBORNU
Rni~neros.C*LIGORNI*
VAN NOSTRANIYS SCIENTIFIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
aelected applications of qualitative DTA, theoretical background for quantitative DTA and its applications, and the use and correlation of DTA results. The laat chapter relates recent developments and applications up to the early part of 1957. To many, the great value of thia hook may lie in its four appendixes. The first lists over 1500 publications pertaining to DTA and dating from 1877 to early 1957. Appendix 2 lists over 250 DTA laboratories in the United States and abroad, giving many particulars on the equipment used in each. Appendix 3 is an index of operators of DTA equip ment throughout the world. The last appendix is an alphabetical reference list of materials studied by DTA with refcrences to their source in literature. The appendixes fill 290 of the 444 pages of the hook. The subject index of six pages completes the hook. This is a reference volume. It should be found in the libraries of all who have any need of differential thermal analysis. I t would be of little value to college chemistry departments, except perhaps in senior courses where special techniques of analysis are being studied. D. F. ARBENEAU
Third edition. D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1958. v i 1839 pp. 23 X 28.5 em. $30.
+
THE third edition (previous editions 1938, 1947) of this comprehensive reference work retains the true character of an encyclopedia. Fifteen thousand terms are explained in 1839 pages. It covers all science and mathematics, both fund& mental and applied, from aeronautics to zoology. Milling, "the process of removing material by multitoothed rotating cutters" takes two pages. Enzymes, "soluble, colloidals, organic catalysts produced by living organisms. . ." is worth a two and a half page essay. "Nuclear reactors" is brought u p t o d a t e very well by six pages largely devoted to clear, instructive diagrams. The use of hold face for key words, uncrowded use of strueturd formulas and mathematical equations, and very adequate crass references should make this volume eagerly sought for it8 usefulnes8. W. F. K.
DIFFERENTIAL THERMAL ANALYSIS W. I. Smothers, Director of Ceramic Research, The Ohio Brass Co., and Yao Chiang, Research Associate in Colloids, Department of Chemistry, Ohio State University. Chemical Publishing CowInc. New York, 1958. 444 pp. 33 figs. 19 tables. 14.5 X 22 cm. $16. AUTKORSSmothers and Chiang here present one of the most complete works on differential thermal analysis (DTA) thus far published. This hook in a sense was begun in 1951 with. the publication of s. "Bibliography of Differential Thermal Analysis." Now, greatly enlarged and supplemented, thia volume consists of eight chapters containing origins of DTA, equipment, factors in qualitative DTA, VOLUME 35, NO. 11, NOVEMBER, 1958
X m m n J m m Coulmm ~ Sroanr, Nov* Bco~r*.C ~ x h n ~
CHEMISTRY OF THE STEROIDS Charles W. Shoppee, Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Sydney. Academic Press Inc., New York, 1958. vii 314 pp. 27 tables. 14 X 22 cm. $9.
+
THIS short hut faidy camprehenaive monograph attempts "to present as concisely as possible the present state of knowledge" of the chemistry of the steroids. Taking as a starting point the classical work of Professor and Mary Fieser ("Natural Products Related to Phenanthrene," 3rdedition) and dso by ahridging and adapting from his and his wife's more extensive chapters in Radd's "Chemistry of Carbon Compounds, Volume 116," pages 764-1049 (Elsevier, 1953), the author gives here only a brief outline of earlier structural investigations an the sterols and bile acids, "hut," to quote again from the Preface, "later structural investigations dealing with the sex harmones, the adrenocortical hormones, the cardiac glyoasides and aglycones, and sapogenins, are presented in full." In addition. various m e e t s of steroid n+
configurational assignments, are covered in the opening chapter. At appropriate points, in other parts of the book, "partial syntheses and total syntheses are also described as fully as is consistent with brevity." Within the soape of these aims, Professor Shoppee hsrr sssemhled his material admirably. Struotural formulas are expertly drawn, and all relevant features of atereochemistry are fully indicated. Designated with Arabic rather than
Roman numerals, the formulas are readily located and easily followed from the text. Although it is assumed that the reader has a g o d working knowledge of a rather wide variety of fundamental as well as more recent and specialized organic reactions, reagents, and terminology, this generous use of structural formulas makes it possible for the non-steroid chemist to use the book with relatively little difficulty. However, the approach throughout, often taken verbatim from the treatment in Rodd, is almost entirely descriptive, with appropriate emphasis on theoretiml implications and relationships an integral feature of only certain sections of the text. The result, in some chapters at least, almost approaches the style of Elsevier's "Encyclopaedia of Organic Chemistry" or even Chemical Abstracts. I n printing and format, the hook is well up to the publisher's excellent standards. Probably the only eeriously objeetionshle feature on this score is the showing of the Cn-me side-chain of ergosterol and related compounds as cis rather than Irans(pp.27,51ff.). The index, consisting almost exclusively of names of compounds, suffers mmewhat from the general omission of important name reactions and applications of specific and typical reaction sequences. Literature coverage is complete through 1955, with a few additional references to important papers which appeared in 1956. The hook, therefore, is a particularly valuable guide to the considerable body of more recent steroid chemistry which has been published in the years since 1948 when the latest edition of the Fieser monograph was sent to press. ALBERT W. BURGBTAHLER Uawensmr OF K m e ~ s L ~ a a s u o s I. t ~ w a * s
GMELINS HANDBUCH DER ANORGANISCHEN CHEMIE. SYSTEMATIC SUBJECT INDEX Edited by the Gmelin Institute under the diredion of E. H. E. Pietach. Eighth edition. Verlag Chemie, GmbH., W e b heim Bergstrasse, 1957. xiv 116 pp. 17.5 X 25.5 Em. $17.28.
+
THIS small volume is the classification of subject matter in inorganic chemistry and related fields used by the Gmelin Handbook. The text is in German and English. As stated in the Preface, the "Index was originally prepared in order to serve as a classificrttipn guide for the Gmelin Institute's scientific archives. The terms were developed and periodically revised over a period of more than 30 years, in the course of the Gmelin Institute's work on the eighth edition of the Gmelin Handhook." The present veraion is suitable for mechanical documentation syetems in inorganic and physical chemistry and allied fields. The hook is available from the usual importers. JOAN W. CHITTUM Co~=manov W o o a ~ n a WOOSTEB.Oaro
