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experimentalist.. . is mistaken." Gurney deserves a great deal of credit for having undertaken such a task and the result of his effort is certainly a most interesting pedagogical contribution. Whether it is an entirely suocessful one will be determined largely by the response of students. After a one-page preface the author presents in the first seven chapters the working methods of stiltistical mechanics without delving too muoh into fundamentals. The quantized viewpoint is introduoed a t the st& in a particularly clear manner and the figures of Chapter 1 are very helpful (note, however, an unfortunate misprint in portion a of Figure 3). The reasoning moves rapidly toward the distribution laws, the partition function, etc. By the end of what is really Part I of the book (the first seven chapters) not only have most of the useful theoretied formulas been established but a certain number of -~~~ imnortant annlient,innr r r ~ - ~ ~ have been treated (particularly in Chapter 7 whioh contains even metallurgical applications). Chapters 8 to 12 might have been regarded as forming Part 11. Here the theory is gone into more deeply, with discussions of the ~ h a s space, e of quantum statistics, etc., being presented. This second part also contains many i m portant applications including some very recent developme6ts. A few problems (sometimes only one) are given a t the end of each chanter. There is an aooendix ineludine three notes on mat,l~emkicdpoints and threet'ables of numerical information, a name index and a ~ubjeetindex. This book may very materially cont.rihute to the wider knowledge of statistioal mechanics and of its connections with chemical thermodynnmics whioh is urgently needed among physical chem.~sr,s. . ~
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to the metals other than lead, 247 to alcohols, and 214 to phenols and phenolic compounds. I t would be best if in the next edition or reprint the impression that carbon dioxide is a simple asphyxiant be amended. Carbon dioxide is a toxic gas in high concentrations for it . paralvzes the . respiratory center. The chemist and chemical engineer will find this book of value for his work in the fields of industrial hygiene and toxicology. MORRIS B . JACOBS BAOOXLIN,NEWYORI
INTRODUCTION TO THE DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS OF PHYSICS -~
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L. HOP&Professor at the Aachen Institute of Technology, trans. lafed by Walter Nef, Professor at the University of Fribourg. 154 PP. 4 8 figs. 17 X 11 om. 1948. v $1.95.
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Tnrs little book, according to the information on its jacket, "does not presuppose any mathematical background beyond elementary cttlculus and is, therefore, particularly well suited for self-study." With this statement the reviewer doesnot agree. The fundamental concepts of vector cdculus and vector analysis are developed in such concentrated doses that, in the opinion of the reviewer, they could not be mastered without considerable outside help by a student who has had but one sear of cslculus. However, he does recommend the book with nd reservations to physics majors in their third and fourth undergraduate years and to graduate students in physical chemistry for its excellent analy s i ~of the power and %Is0 of the limitations of the application of this branch of mathematics to the fundamental problems of mechanics. JOAN A. TIMM
INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND TOXICOLOGY, VOLUME I1 Edited bv Frank A. Pattv. Director. Industrial Hvmiene .- Service. ~ e n e r a l . ~ a t o r~orpor&n, s ~ e t r o i t . Interscience ~ u b l i s h e i i GAS TABLES New York, 1949. xrviii 603 pp. 164 tables. 17 X 25 om. $15. Joseph H. Keenan, Protessor of Mechanical Engineering, and Joseph Kaye, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, THISbook is designed to present the topic of industrial hygiene Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachuand toxicology in sufficient detail t o be useful t o all persons in- setts. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1948. x 238 pp. terested in safeguarding the health and welfare of working people 64 tables. 19 X 2 6 cm. $5. hv controlline their workine environment. Seven chanters are THISvolume supersedes a previous one by the same authors, devoted t,o inorganic industrid poisons, an entire chapter being given to lead, and twelve chapters, divided into the customary entitled "Thermodynamic Properties of Air." The properties functional groups of aliphatic, aromatic, cyclic, and halogenated of air have been recalculated. Tables hsve been added of the hydrocarbons; doohols; aoids, esters; ketones; ethers and properties of the produots of combustion of hydrocarbons and of glycols; aliphatic and aromatic nitrocompounds; and phenolic the propertics of the constituent gases. Greatly extended tables of functions which are useful in the analysis of the flow of comcompounds, are devoted to orgmio industrial hazards. 111 general, each element, compound, group of compounds, or pressible fluids hsve been included. The values of thermodynamic properties are based upon the atmosphe~iecontaminant is discussed from the points of view of uses and industrial exposures; physical and chemical properties, recommendations of Rossini and his co-workers, published by the aft,en giving constants not commonly found in the literature; National Bureau of Standards. The ideal gas equation of atate, physiological response for both acute and chronic effects and for making possible a one paremotcr tabulation of the properties as different animals a t times given in tabular form; absorption and functions of the temperature, is employed throughout the book. exoretion; maximum permissible limits and odor and warning All of the tabulated quantities are expressed in the English system propert,ies; and inflammability. Almost no analytical methods of units. The aerodynamic functions are based upon the equaare detailed but there are many references to the literature and a tion for polytropic expansion and are expressed for s range of very useful bit of information detailed for many compounds is the values of the expansion index. The amount of useful information contained in this book is relat~ionshipof 1mg./l. of the compound converted to parts of the compound per million parts of air and mg. per cu. m. rtt 25°C. and imposing, and its compilation is evidently the result of an impressive amount of labor. Unfortunately, the tables of the 760 mm. 1x1 the 1;t.d rhrprvr of Is5 p R r 5 rlw rerognitinn and control of thermodynamic properties of air and of the products of combus~wtrutinlimlurrrird w p w n I roniidered. Some 70 indu~trial tion of hydrocarbons take no account of dissociation equilibria, processes are covered with particular stress on battery manu- but assume constant composition for the entire temperature range. This assumption begins to fail a t temperatures of the fncture, foundry operations, and metal-cleaning processes. Proof has been oarefully read. The book is well printed on a order of 1500°F., and the t,abulated values are seriously in error page size somewhat larger than usual, 17 X 25 cm. There are a t the highest temperatures of the table. Since the dissociations over 1500 R ~ C T C ~ C C S126 , devoted to the halogen compounds, 423 are pressure-dependent, the enthalpy a t the higher temperatures ~
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