RECENT BOOKS INORGANIC SYNTHESES, VOLUME I. Editor-in-chief, Harold Simmons Booth. Westem Reserve University, Cleveland. Ohio. Associate Editors, L. F.Audrieth and John C. Bnilar, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois; W. Conard Ferneliur, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; Warren C. Johnson, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, and Raymond E. Kirk. Brwklyn Polytechnic Institute, Brwklyn, New York. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York City. 1939. xiii 197 pp. 31 figs. 15 X 23 cm. $3.00. If this first volume of a new series is a representative sample of what is to come, i t appears that the chemical world is soon to receive a liberal education in practical inorganic chemistly. Unlike many of the earlier hooks on the subject of inorganic preparations, this work can be read with interest and rapid understanding by any advanced undergraduate student of chemistry. Each topic is accompanied by an explanatory preface, by whose aid even a very didactic description of procedure would be fully intelligible. I n many cases, further clarity results from the presence, within the text of the procedure itself, of briefly stated reasons for the instructions given. By studying this book, a reader should be able t o gain a more realistic insight into the subjects covered than he could attain by any other kind of reading. The editors are t o be congratulated on the uniformly high pedagogical value o-~ f this collection of work bv more than seventv authors. The volume contains eighty-four procedures, representing a wide range of subjects and methods. Clear descriptions of difficult and unusual processes, valuable to research workers entering new fields of study, are t o be found almost side-hy-side with simpler material, sufficient in quantity and variety for any upperclass or graduate course in inorganic preparations. Even in the relatively familiar material, one finds scarcely any repetition of methods described in older works. Thus the preparation of hydrogen sulfide is ancient indeed, but the trick of obtaining it as a pure liquid, in one fairly simple operation. is strictly modern. Again, the generation of hydrogen chloride surely represents nothing new, but the special technic here described illustrates so well the convenient operation of a semi-continuous process, that it may easily be generalized to apply t o many other preparations. Among the less common subjects, one finds two methods of generating fluorine, and its use for preparing compounds not otherwise available. the oreoaration of szides. haloeen . . - derivatires of ammonia, nirramide, and some of the more useful compounds of rhenium, the r e v useful organic reagent lead tetracetate, and elccrrolytic mcthrxfi of making some unusual amalgams. These and numerous other seldom available descriptions are put forward by specialists who evidently are gifted teachers as well as experts in the subjects offered. If one might venture to find fault with such an excellent work. such criticism would he directed mainly a t the general arrangement of material, a problem which must have involved many dilemmas, whatever decisions might have been made. The in-, tention of following the Mendelheff table seems quite logical enough, hut the result sometimes is a highly arbitrary separation of related subjects. The most striking example of this seems to be the scattering of the chemistry of fluorine through three or four chapters. To this reviewer, a t least, i t appears that the generation of fluorine and the production of highly volatile fluorides by its use, belong together in one chapter; further, a definite advantaee would have been mined bv la cine this material verv close to the dewription of the technic uf handing boron fluoridp. in view of the numerous purposes served by the volume, however, it may he that thc edirors rightly regard the present organiaarion as the best compromise among codicting values. With all of its variety of material, this volume remains only a beginning, and a suggestion of the valuable possibilities of this editorial method. I t is greatly to he hoped that the project will receive enthusiastic support from the chemical public, and that the high standard set by the first volume will be maintained in
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later members of the series. A comprehensive set of such volumes should give an extremely important impetus to the development of inorganic chemistry. ANTONB. BURG TBg UNIVSIISITY 01 CBXE&OO
CHICADO. ILCCNOIS
HIGH Scmoo~CHEMISTRY.Georce Howard Bruce. Second revision. World Book company, New York City, 1938. x 550 pp. 13 X 19 cm. $1.68. Five wars havinp " elaosed . since the orevious revision. the aurhor has thought it nrcrsilry to bring thir text more nearly up-todote. HE h=s, therefarr, writtrn ncw treatments of such topics as subxomic structure. \&nce, and chemical union. The latter subject is presented in terms of electron transfer or the sharing of binding pairs of electrons. Recent views of crystal structure and of ionization have been introduced and various other modern ideas have, a t least, found brief mention. The admirable features of the previous editions, such as simplicity and clarity of language, boldface setting of equations, definitions, terms, and emphasized words have been retained. Another merit of this text is its comparative brevity. To judge from the conclusion of P. M. Glasoe in his article in the August, 1938, number of THISJOURNAL, this brevity is something greatly t o be desired. "In Europe" he says, "the textbook for the same course is one hundred and fifty pages" . . ."European students master the subject so that it can be said that they know the elements of chemistm." To the reviewer's mind the desirable brevity in the present text has been brought about more by limiting the discussion of topics than by restricting the number of subjects treated. The College Board, the Regents, and the minimum syllabus of the American Chemical Society are probably guilty in this matter. A sampling of various parts of the text shows excellent method in the presentation of even the mare difficult subjects, such as the implications and applications of the Avogadra Law. I n the latter connection one wonders why all the textbook writers insist an considering equal volumes of gases when that special case only rarely occurs, instead of teaching the fundamental of extremely uniform distribution in space of the molecules of all gases (which is the thing that Gay-Lussac described a s "like circumstances"). Asa corollary it then follows that the numbers of particles and the volumes are in strict proportionality. (The student whois led to grasp such a view is being educated whereas the pupil who is permitted to memorize the "eanal volumes.. eaual . numbers" is beinr" mistreated, but chi
