Volume 11, Part 11, has heen divided intonine chapters dealing with aromatic alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones; acids; phenolic acids; tannins; derivatives of triphenylmethaue; terpenes; polyterpenes and rubber; caratenoids; sterols; hormones and vitamins. Volume 11, Part 111, contains six chapters, the first four dedicated t o heterocyclic compounds and the remaining two t o the alkaloids. The author has not deviated in the two parts here reviewed from the aims indicated in Part I and there attained. Here is presented a large amount of subject matter. The author has riven an advanced and uo-ta-date discussion of the tonics listed above and has succeeded in making a hook which i~hoth informative and didactic. Thc work is a vrrp welcome contribution to the chemical literature of Spmkh-speaking countries, and it will find an appropriate place in many chcmicnl lilmarics. I n the last 55 pages a very complete subjrct index is included. adding to the uselulnrss of the hook. T h e typographicd work is
OF FOODS.AndrevlL. Winton. Sometimestateand THE ANALYSIS Federal Chemist, and Kate Barber Winton, Sometime State and Federal Microscopist. John Wiey and Sans, Inc., New York, 1945. xii 999pp. 208figs. 15.5 X 22cm. $12. For several years food chemists have known that a place was again available for a new and comprehensive book on the analysis of foods. Such a hook should be neither another revision of Leach's colossal book on that subject first published 40 years ago, nor an expansion of the methods of analysis of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists. There have been many improvements and innovations in the methods of food analysis during the past 40 years. The discovery of new basic food adjuncts has necessarily led t o the development of new methods of analysis. New physical methods, such as spectrography, spectrophotometry, chromatography, and polarography have had a distinct bearing unon chanees in and imnrovements of methods of analvsis andallo in the&velopmentbf new methods suitable for roitine work. The difficulties involved in the production of a single volume upon the subject of food analysis appeared t o be almost insurmountable and yet in this book, the Wintons seem t o have achieved the impossible. The book is fresh, it is new, and even if it contains a few obsolete methods of analysis, i t is up t o date. If this volume had been published anonymously the identity of the senior author would necessarily have been discovered by reason of certain oicturesaue lanrmaee .. - here and there. For example, "As fur the decignation nitrugm-free extract, it is not so inappropriate as srientific jokers would have it." hut all attrmptn t o purify crude tibcr in chcmkal analysis have ended in failure because, first, no one knows what pure fiber is, as applied t o food, and, second, because results on a more solid scientific basis would be of little more value thaa what chemists have been blunderingly reporting during a century." A book of this sort is naturally a compilation, but the authors of the compilation are persons having had years of actual experience in f w d analysis, consequently the book contains but few errors. The portion of the work devoted strictly t o campilation, for the ahovc reason, has been reduced t o the irreducible minimum. The preparation of this work required an enormous amount of study and of research into the literatwe of the subject. It is t o be expected that a former president of the A.O.A.C. would draw heavily from the methods of that Asswiation, yet the book contains vastlv more material secured elsewhere. For examole. Part 1 ;.--~-, ~ '*divided into inoreanic constituents ., ~ h a ~ t-,e"Aqh ~ - --~~~~ - orincioal ~~r~~~~ ~" -~ and minor inorganic constituents, covers 78 pages and contains 201 references t o scientific publications. Of these references, only 28 are t o the A.O.A.C. methods or proceedings, and the balance covers references t o 55 other publications. Thechapter on vitamins covers 88 pages, with 249 references t o the literature of this rapidly changing subject. I t contains inter-
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rcting accounts of the chemical structure of these substanrrs and sprctrophorometric, chromatographic, and chemical method< of analysis. Bio-assays are not iucludcd. The chapters on colors are very short, as is also that on preservatives, yet bath are sufficiently informative for normal procedure in food inspection laboratories. The chapter on dairy products is excellent. The Baier and Neumann method for added sucrose in milk could have been omitted since it has been superseded by the far better and mare accurate Rothenfusser test for that purpose. Both tests are fully described. One unfortunate error in authorship occurs on page 758. The author of the method for detecting color in milk was Albert E. Leach. One other error occurs in the title of the table on page 717; it should be "Total Solids" rather than "Solids-notFat." The chapter on Oils and Fats occupies 66 pages and is very complete. Among the omissions may he mentioned the determination of squalene [Jour. A.O.A.C., XXVI, 499 (1943)l as an indication of the per cent of olive oil in mixed oils, and the Fitelson tests for teaseed oil, thelatter being among the officialmethods of the A.O.A.C. (p. 440,1940 edition.) Although this review discusses the book from the standpoint of a food inspection chemist, yet its value as a volume relating t o chemical education should not be neglected. The authors outline a short course in food analysis which could well be used t o teach students in certain chemical and physical processes not generally studied in the usual courses in qualitative and quantitative analysis. Many chapters, such as that on the vitamins, are written almost as much from the educational as from the analytical angle. The historical development of certain methods, such as those formilk solids and for milk fat, are disclosed. The teacher can well use this yolnme for ideas t o be used in lectures, a s well as for laboratory instruction. The young chemist interested in food chemistry should read and digest this book from cover t o cover and thus learn certain phases of food composition and analysis quite foreign t o his routine work and not always present in official methods. We "old timers" can read this book in more or even in less detail and can learn much in our own reiatively small field of work as well as in foreign fields. We can gather inspiration from it and, above all, we can appreciate and marvel a t the colossal amount of work necessarily performed in producing this most excellent volume. The hook should be on the shelves of every food inspection library, in the home of every focd inspection chemist, and in the hands of all chemists engaged in the manufacture of food prod-
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THE AD~AZING PETROLEUM INDUSTRY. V . A . Kaluhevsky, Research and Development Laboratories, Socany-Vacuum Oil Co., Inc. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1943. 234 pp. 12.5 X 18.5 cm. $2.25. This book provides a nontechnical rhumb of the petroleum industry. FUNDAMENTALS OF MACHINES. Charles E. Dull, Head of the Science Department in West Side High School, Newark, New Jersey, and Ira G. Nwlin, Head of the Science Department in the Scarsdale, New York, High School. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, 1943. xvi 547 pp. 368 figs. 13.5 X 19.5 cm. $1.32.
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F~DAMENTALS oa ELECTRICITY.Charles E. Dull, Head of the Science Department in West Side High School, Newark, New Jersey, and Michuel N.Idelson, Head of the Science Department in the Abraham Lincoln School, New York City. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, 1943. xx 456 pp. 370 figs. 13.5 X 19.5 cm. 51.20.
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