proton-donating and proton-accepting tendencies?" He discusses the relationship of acidity and basicity to charge, to relative eloetronegativities, and to ion size. In connection with electronegativity he considers the relative acidities of some .
.
the role of resonance. In Chapter 4 the Lewis definitions for acids and bases are presented as logical oonceptual extensions of the Br$nsted definitions. It is shown how the Lewis definitions unleashed the acid-base concept from its dependence upon hydrogen, how the fundamental acid-base reaction hecomes the formation of an sdduct made up of an acid portion and a base portion, and how the Lewis concent has revolutionized the theory and praeiice of acid catalysis. Chapter 5 is conoerned with basedisplacement resctions. As an organic ohemist, the author is concerned with the worth of the base-displacement viewpoint, which is that it provides the intellectual link between Br$nsted acid-base reactions and the many base-displacement reactions that make up a large part of organic chemistry. Nucleophilic substitutions, elimination, and nucleophilic additions are considered here. The final chapter is concerned with the less numerous displacements of one Lewis acid by another. Eleetrophilie displacements and additions are discussed here. VanderWerf brings his little book to a close by revealing that one of his aims has been to help those who are planning the study of organic chemistry to appreciate "the compelling beauty and iascinrttion of the well-developed intellectual framework upon which modern organic chemistry is based." The two types of reeders for whom this entire book will be most useful are: (1) atudents just beginning a course in organic chemistry who feel that there is a wide gap between whet thev know and what thev would like to L a w about electron;^ structure and whet might be called "chemical personality"; and (2) chemists in other areas of specislizatian to whom organic chemistry just didn't make sense when they were students. The 6rst three chapters, and most of the fourth, provide excellent supplementary reading for all the ~ h l e rstudents in eeneral chemistrv. ", regardless of their organic chemical ootmtial. The value of this well-written book is enhanced by good diagrams and a complete index. LAWRENCE P. EBLIN Ohio University Athm Thermoelectricity: Engineering
Sciance and
Ro6erf R. He& and Roland W. Um, JI., both of Westinghouse Research Laboratories, Pitt~burgh,Pennsylvania. Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1961. xi 576 pp. Figs. and tables. 16.5 X 23.5 em. $18.50.
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Not-so-very-oldtimers can r e e d the day when thermoelectricity was used only
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Journal of Chemical Educotion
for measuring and controlling temperature: as a means of Dower neneration it \$:IS gvnwdly ronceded IA I,? irwonsrrluenrinl. Tlw modrrn prrowupstion with thc i u w w g y conusc of tlwrmo~le~tri~~ity version and refrigeration is now so complete that this latest hook on the subject mentions thermometry only once, quite casually, and mentions temperature control not at all. The hook should appeal chiefly to scientista and engineers concerned with the design of thermoelectric devices or to the chemist charged with the development of thermoelectric materials. Its distinguishing characteristic is the wealth of detailed theory given connecting the electrical and thermal transport properties of semiconductors with their use in energy converters or cooling devices. Bibliographies a t the end of the chapters are voluminous and include references through 1959 in most instances. For 8. less intensive and more general introduction, one might do better to read Ioffe's little hook, or selected papers in the book recently edited by Xgli (see TAIS J~UUNAL, 38, 534 [19611). The theory includes a treatment of thermal conduction, an irreversible effect, using the Onsager reciprocal relations, and points out the connection between the more complete theory and Kelvin's theory in which the reversible effets were treated separately. The theoretical parts of the book are separated into sections of increasing degree of specialization, This organieation leads to considerable repetition, and the reviewer was left with the feeling that some condensation might have been achieved without loss of clarity. Chemists will take most interest in chapters on diffusion, crystal growth, and the chemistry of mixed valence materiala. The first of them includes, in addition to a standard discussion of Fiek's Law, concise treatment of the Soret diffusion. The connection between thermoelectricity and diffusionis the following: due to the presence of temperature gradients or concentration gradients, the composition and properties of thermoelectric materials may change with time. Unfortunately, the experimental data on diffusion in thermoelectric materials are so scarce that no useful quantitative examples have been provided. Fifty-two pages are devoted to mixed valence semiconductors; however, the reader will be disappointed to l e a n in a later chapter that these materids, along with electrolytically conducti~gsolids(for which the Seebeck coefficient may he as high as 1 mV deg-1) and liquids, hold little promise for use in practical devices. The length and cost of the book could have been substantially reduced by eliminating or condensing some of t h w topiw, adequately covered in other monographs, which prove, by the authors' own analysis, to be of minor present concern. Heikes and Ure were assisted by a. group of 14 eollaborstors; of the 17 chapters, the principal authors wrote or co-authored 8. The difficult job of editing for uniformity of nomenclsture and symbolism has been, with minor exceptions, well done, but the literary style is variable. Numerous typographical errors and one mist h e in indexing were found. While such evidences of carelessness probably will
not detract from the utility of the book for the specialist, it definitely reduces the pleasure s. more general reader would find in studying this hook. ALLENB. SCOTT Oregon State University Corvallis
Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. Volume 12,1961 Edited by Henry Eyring, and C . J . Christensen, both of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and H. S . Johnston, University of California, Berkeley. Annual Reviews, Inc., Pa10 Alto, Cal514 pp. Tables. ifornia, 1961. vii 16 X 23 cm. 87.
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Volume 12 of this well-known series lives up to the high standards of previous volumes. Nineteen fields of ohvsical chemistry are covered. Most of these are coveted regularly but s. few are new or occssionally-reported areas. The topics covered and the authors are as follows: Physical Organic Chemistry, A. N. Bourns and E. Buncel; Marine Geochemistry, E. D. Goldberg; Physical Properties of High Polymers, I
