useful in the laboratory yet me not well known to many chemists. In a book on glassblowing a section on metal working seems out of place. The author argues that he intends the book to be a handbook for the glassblower in the small laboratory who has to handle a great many different skills. This book, however, will hardly serve as the only reference tool such a. person uses and this reviewer questions the relevance of the metal working section. The book is well put together and on the whole carefully edited. The formula on page 23 is dimensionally incorrect. Some warning of eleetrooution hazard ought to be included with the hot wire glasscutter on page 58 which combines a water faucet and 110 a. c. I t is true that the circuit diagram contains an isolation transformer but this should be made more specific and grounded for safety's sake. Even better would be the use of a wash bottle or other ungrounded source of water. LAURENCE E. STRONG E A R ~ ACOLLEGE M R r c n ~ o n o I. N D I * ~ *
UNIT PROCESSES IN ORGANIC SYNTHESIS Edited hy P. H.Groggins, Chemical E n g i neer and Consultant. Fifth edition. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, 1070 pp. Many figs. and 1958. x tables. 16 X 23.5 cm. $17.50.
lar unit process. The authors are from industry, research organizations, and universities, so that several viewpoints will give a. well-rounded chapter. Some changes have been made as changes in the organic process industries show new emphasis is needed. Two chapters from the fourth edition have been dropped: diaaotisation and coupling, and the Friedel-Crafts reaction. This does not imply that these reactions are no longer important, but that advances in them have been slight and the material given in the fourth edition continues to be authoritative. The previous ohapter or sulfanation has been enlarged to sulfonation and sulfation to cover reactions of importance for synthetic detergents. The former ohapter an hydroformylation and the 0x0 reaction has been broadened to hydrocarbon synthesis and bydroformylation with considerable material on the Fisoher-Tropsch synthesis. The diverse materials and reactions for plastics and elastomers have caused the chapter on polymerization to be split into twosections, (1)principles of polymer chemistry, and (2) polymeri~ationpractice. The H t h edition of "Unit Processes in Oresnic Svnthesis" continues abreast
book. Umvsnsmv
OF
KENNETH A. KOBE TEXU
A ~ ~ T ITex*s N.
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ALMOST25 years have elapsed between the first and 6fth editions of "Unit Proces ses in Organic Synthesis." During this time the organic chemical industries have expanded enormously; many new industries have grown up based on new or hitherto unusual reactions. Likewise, "Unit Processes" has grown to keep pace with the expanding industries. It has been translated into five foreign languages and used world-wide. This popularity is due to the fact that theory and industrial practice sre combined in ~ a c hchapter so that the reader first understands the basic theory of the unit process, then learns how it is carried out industrially, what equipment is used, and other valuable information conoerning both the process and the products. Such informetion based on experience is invaluable to workers in countries just building their organic process industries. The fifth edition keeps up with the trend in the organic industries to apply more theory to the process and to make use of thermodynamics and kinetics wherever possible to predict equilibrium yield and the rate at which the product is formed. The first three chapters are new ones on ( I ) applications of thermodynamics in unit processes, (2) chemical kinetics, (3) chemical process kinetics. Within each ohapter on a unit process material is given on the thermodynamics and the kinetics of the particular reaetion. Thus, a much more fundamental viewpoint has been adopted in this edition. As before, each ohapter is written by one or more experts in the field of the particu-
FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEMISTRY
L Jean Bogert, Formerly Iostrudor in Medidne, University of Chicago. Eighth edition. W. B. Saunders Co., Philadel615 pp. 168 figs. phia, 1958. rviii 15 X 21 cm. $5.50.
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PROFESSOR Bogert's newest edition of his popular general chemistry textbook will be weleomed by its many users. While this new edition includes some of the more recent chemicd developments, it is rather seriously lacking in the most recent fundamental concepts. No college or nrofessiond school cbemistrv student
of bonding and structure in the more complex molecules are not presented. Theories on solubility and ionization are inadequately discussed. In view of the universal occurrence of coordination compounds in such places as blood, vitamins, chlorophyll, ete., it is surprising to find no mention of them. The book is very interestingly written. It should be a pleasure for students using it to read each ohapter, but it is not geared to oollege-level thinking. Even though the courses in which it may be used are terminal there is still too shallow a presentation of basic chemicsl principles. It compares mare favorably with current high school chemistry textbooks. SISTER MARY MARTINETTE. B.V.M. Mnmenmr* C o m ~ a ~ cxrc*ao, ~ L L I N O , ~
ELECTRONIC THEORIES OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY John William Boker, University of Leeds. Oxford University Ress, New York, 1958. vii 224 pp. 14.5 X 22 om. $4.80.
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THE purpme of this book, as stated in the preface, is to introduce a student who has completed a first course in organic chemistry to the field of reaction mecha nisms. To accomplish this end, "broad fundamental principles are applied to familiar organic molecules." A list of the ohapter titles indicates the material selected: The Nature of Chemical Binding Forces and of Chemical Reaction, Classical Structural Formulae: The Inductive Effect, Physical Interpretation of Covalency, The Conjugative Effect, Xuoleophilio Substitution Reactions at Saturated Carbon, Olefin-Forming Elimination Reactions, Additions to Unsaturated Compounds, Tautomerism, Esterificetion and Hydrolysis, Aromatic Substitution in Benzene and Its Simple Derivatives, and Saturated Remrmgements. The author has done an excellent job of presenting the material xhieh he has selected. The major points are not buried in a mass of detail. A student will achieve a framework of principles w-hieh he can fill out by reading more advanced texts and reference works. This text is not a reference work; in many parts the arguments a x summarized but details are omitted. There are no references to. specific points raised, but general references at the end of each chapter. These are almost exclusively British, the most recent being 1953. The place of this book is not as a text for a full-fledged mechanisms course. I t may well be a valuable supplement for an undergraduate student who has become interested in theories and mechanisms. JOHN D. REINHEIMER
CHAIN REACTIONS,AN INTRODUCTION
F. S. Dainton, Rofessor of Physical Chemistry, University of Leeds. Methuen & Co., London, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1957. 183 pp. 1 3 X 19 cm. $2.90. THISbook is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Metbuen Monographs on Chemical Subjects. It is concise, clear, and destined to he a classic in a field of recognized importance in contemporary chemistry. Its success in treatine a somewhat formidable nhase of in the subject matter of ohain processes and a writer of gret~tclarity, with a subject in need of up-to-date tterttment in the English language. The careful attention devoted to the general principles of homogenous reactions in the first chapter provides a firm basis for the subsequent chapters dealing with experimental methods for elucidating ohain mechctnisms, the chemical nature of the elementary processes involved in an JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
