RECENT BOOKS T H E LILBORATORY WORKSHOP.A SIMPLECOURSEI N APPARATUS that, God willing, a time would come when she too would con-
B.Sc., MAKINGAND THE USE OII TOOLS. E. H. Du~kwo~th, A.R.C.S.. Inspector of Science and Technical Education, Colonial Service, Nigeria; and R. Harries, City and Guilds (Engineering) College, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London, 1933. xi 246 pp. 8 Plates. 428 Figs. 14 X 22 cm. lo/- net.
tribute her quota. "Half-a-century has since then rolled by. My dream I have now the gratification of finding fairly materialized. A new era has evidently dawned upon India. Her sons have taken kindly to the zealous pursuit of different branches of science. May the torch thus kindled hum with greater brilliance fromgeneration to generation." The pwpose of this hook, as stated by the authors, is that it The book has two themes: a scientific and a political one. "may encourage the design and construction of home-made ap- The author is intensely interested in the development of pure and paratus not only because of the pleasure and advantages which applied chemistry in India. He is also a n ardent politician. the use of a laboratory workshop brings, hut also because in these oreachine- a t all times the doctrine of India for the Indians. He times when economy is urged and the allmation of money for admires the English as chemists and hates them as a ruling class. scientific apparatus is all too small, self-help of this kind seems I t is permitted to the reader to like parts of the hook and not to the only way in which efficient teaching is to be secured." Sug- be enthusiastic over others. gesting possible uses of the laboratory workshop, the authors Prafulla Chandra R i y was born in 1861. His father, though further knowingly remark: "Most science masters have had the a Hindu, learned Persian, which was then the court language, and experience of delving into cupboards and finding a dusty collec- had a smattering of Arabic. The son was interested a t first tion of broken balances, galvanometers and such-like that are in Latin and in English literature. The change to chemistry no longer in use owing to the lack of some small screw or essential came after entering the Metropolitan Institution of Pandit part." and pointing out the need for training in manual dexterity Iswarcbandra Vidayasagar. The chemistry professor was Mr. state: "The wide development of science in schools has given (afterward Sir Alexander) Pedler. the opportunity for a new type of workshop, where science and R i y won a Gilchrist Scholarship and left India for Edinburgh handcraft are happily linked together, and where students can in 1882. At Edinburgh he worked under Crum Brown. Two learn that general handiness with tools for accurate working in of his fellow students were James Walker, who was the first both wood and metal, which is of mlut, not only to the future Englishman to work with Ostwald, and Alexander Smith, later science worker, but to any man or woman living in the present professor a t Chicago and Columbia. age of mechanism." R i y wondered whether he too should take up physical chemThe task set far themselves by the authors is well performed. istry hut was advised by Professor Dittmar of Glasgow to be a The book is informative, suggestive, and inspirational. The bead- chemical chemist fint. He received his doctor's degree in inings of the twelve chapters suggest the scope and content of the oreanic chemistrv in 1887. I n 1888 R i v returned to Calcutta ~subjects treated. These are: I, The Selection and General and in 1889 he was appointed temporary assistant professor a t Equipment of a Laboratory Workshop; 11, Tool Equipment; 111. the Presidency College. Materials: IV. How to Mark Out. Cut. File. Drill, and Bend Ray felt that "in Bengal the one thing needed was not so much Sheet ~ e & ,Rod, Strip, and TUG; V, Screw Cutting; VI, the establishment of Technological Institutes as the initiative, Soldering; VII, Woodworking; VIII, Electric Wiring and the the dash, the pluck, the resourcefulness in our youths that go to Laboratory; IX, Miscellaneous ProcessesThe Cutting, Drill- the making of a business man, an entrepreneur, or a captain of ing, and Grinding of Glass; X, Drawings and Designs; XI, Ap- industry. The college-bred youth has been found to be a hopeparatus Designs; XII, More Apparatus Designs. An appendix less failure; there is no driving power in him; a t best he can only contains a good bibliography of hooks and periodicals for the shine as a tool or an automaton." workshop library, and an adequate index renders,details readily To remedy this R i y started a small chemical factory which he accessible. ran as an adjunct to his teaching. At first they made sodium The treatment of subject matter is exhaustive and highly de- phosphate from the bones of cattle and such pharmaceuticals tailed. Tools are listed and illustrated and their dimensions and as Syrup Ferri Iodidi, Liquor Arsenicalis, Liguor Bismuth, Spiritus sizes are exactly specified. Materials and supplies are described Aetheri Nitrosi, etc. Bottles were bought second-hand in the in detail. The proper quality and sizes, as of sheet metal, rods. bazaar. The selling was a difficulty because people said: "Imbars, tubing, angles, channels, screws, bolts, rivets, nails, solder, ported drugs from firms of established reputation command a abrasives, cements, solvents, etc., are described and in many ready sale, whereas indigenous drugs would be refused by our cases sources are mentioned and approximate prices stated. customers.'' Paragraphs and figures are numbered and cross references,which The impossible happened. All difficulties, including the lack occur constantly throughout the book, serve to coiirdinate details. of capital, were finally overcome and now the Bengal Chemical The 428 figures are of the type of first-class engineering draw- and Pharmaceutical Works employs two thousand hands and ings, and the plates are well chosen and well prepared. Drawings has perhaps the biggest sulfuric acid plant in India. and printing are clear, and the arrangement and format are atI n 1894 the chemical department moved into new buildings. tractive. No ermrs of importance are noted. Soon after this R2y discovered mercurous nitrite. The investiNot every science laboratory may have a completely equipped gation of this substance and its numerous derivatives and also workshop, hut every worker who is concerned with the design. of the nitrites in general meant one hundred or more papers. construction, care, repair, or use of scientific equipment may find This should have kept Ray busy; but that was not the case. He a wealth of helpful and suggestive information in this book. found time to write a "History of Hindu Chemistry" which was a masterpiece. I n 1916 R i y joined the newly founded University College of Science as the first holder of a Professorship of Chemistry. I n 1921 chain in Applied Chemistry and in Physical ChemisW OP A BENGALICHE~IST.Plajulka LIPR AND EXPERIENCES Chandm Ray. Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co., Ltd., Cal- were established. I t is not too much to say that the gratifying development of chemistry in India in the last forty years is due 557 pp. 14 X 22 cm. 7s. 6d. cutta, India, 1932. x directlv ~ ~ ~ and - indirectlv ~ ~ -to R ~ v , This would be a marvelous thing fnr anvbodv to have done: .. .., -~~~ , hut it is the more remarkable when I n the preface Professor Ray says: "Whiie a student a t . Edinburgh I found to my regret that every civilized country, one considers that Rby has been what most of us would call a n including Japan, was adding to the world's stock of knowledge; invalid all his life. M e n thirteen years old hc had a bad attack but that unhappy India was lagging behind. I dreamt a dream of dysentery which became chronic, making him a permanent
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valetudinarian with impaired digestive organs. He was a victim of indigestion, diarrhoea, and, later on, of insomnia. He has had to submit to the most rigid observance of diet and regimen. All this, however, was only half of Rky's life. To him the aolitical side was eauallv imoortant. As a bov he had been attracted to the ~ra'hmoSaraj movement which aimed at thc abolition of the caste system, the removal of social inequalities (including the social relations between Englishmen and Indians), and the uplifting of women by the spread of education among them. While a student in Edinburgh Rky wrote: "We find there is a tendency among a certain class of writers to single out some of the worst types of Mohammedan despots and bigots, and institute a comparison between the India under them and the India of today. This is very fair, no doubt; but will the Mohammedan rule su5er by comparison with ours? I t is forgotten that a t the time when a Queen of England was flinging into flames and hurling into dungeons those of her own subjects who had the misfortune to differ from her on dogmatic niceties, the great Mogul Akbar had proclaimed the principles of universal toleration, had invited the moulvie, the pandit, the rabbi, and the missionary to his court, and had held philosophical disquisitions with them on the merits of their various religions." Ray was responsible for Gandhi's first appearance on a Calcutta platform. This was in 1902 and even a t that time "the ideas of Satyagrapha and Passive Resistance which were destined to be such potent factors after a generation had already germinated." It seems to be quite certain that the English in India have been unwise in the extent to which they blocked the rise of Indians in the Civil Setvice. On the other hand R i y does not draw a flattering picture of the Bengali. Part of the general misunderstandine is that R i v fwuses on the soecial Beneali - and the ~u~l~h~~ovem on mthe e naverage t ~ingali. C o a ~ e ~Ur N . IYBRS~Y W I L ~ E D. R BANCXOFI
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Huomnas OF BORON A N D SILICON.A l f f ~ d Slack, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, Technirche Hochschule, Karlsruhc. Comcll Univcrsitv Press. Ithaen. New York. 1933. vt T 250 pp. 28 Figs.. 8 plates. 15.5 ~ 2 cm. 3 $2.00
It demonstrates the author's clear and broad concepts of the problems confronting science. It is followed by a single chapter on the investigations of the hydrides of silicon. These hydrides are prepared by the action of hydrochloric acid solution of magnesium silicide, MgzSi, which gives rise to the formation of the well-defined comnounds.. Si&... Si,H.. and.a t least . . . %Ha. . ~ SiHlo. .~ two other higher hydrides. The halogen substitution products present another interesting series of compounds, while the oxygen and nitrogen derivatives are unique in their chemical and physical properties. Due to the pronounced affinity of silicon for oxygen, the chemistry of these hydrides is by no means as extensive as that of the analogous compounds of carbon. Carbon stands alone in its ability to form a large number of different types of stable combinations with other elements. Attempts are made to explain the formation of these hydrides by the reaction mentioned above, but it appears that there is not at present any mechanism entirely free from criticism. The greater part of the bwk is confined to the studies of the hydrides of boron. These compounds are prepared in a manner analogous to the preparation of the silicon hydrides, that is, through the action of hydrochloric acid on magnesium boride. Several hydrides have been established here, namely, B*Hs. B,H,u, B6Ha, B5H,,, BsHlo, and B , d h . An extensive account is given of their chemical and physical properties. It is also interesting to learn that BH8 has never been prepared and probably does not exist. Thus a study of the chemistry of these hydrides may lead to some very interesting results relative to our concepts of valence. The hydrides mentioned above do not appear to behave in accordance with the expectations of the normal valence relations. Accordingly, much of the work in this field has been directed toward a solution of these valence problems. Some studies have been made with the alkyl derivatives of boron to aid this problem. One is a t once impressed by the unique methods employed to prepare and study the hydrogen compounds of boron and silicon. Here Stock has contributed outstanding and invaluable twls for the worker who is required to study the properties of substances in the absence of air and moisture. Much of this technic is already in use in many of our academic and technical laboratories: and without it. manv research orablems would be areatly handicapped today. Mention may be given here to only a few manipulations, such as the mercury float-valve, special containers for storing gases, vessels for the determination of the vapor density of a substance in the absence of lubricants, the floating balance for density and pressure measurements, shaking devices, the determination of the melting point of a substance in oacuo a t low temperatures, low-temperature fractional distillation and thermometer, and condensation. the use of the vaoor-rrressure . . many methods for c ~ n y i n gout reactions i n varuo at low temperatures. These manipulations arc thoroughly described and illustrated in the Appendix of the t e x t . Complete references to the literature are also given. This book should be in every library and in the hands of workers interested not only in the hydrides of these metals, but in the physical and chemical properties of substances which caunot be studied under the usual laboratory conditions. ~
Professor Stock, the George Fisher Baker Non-resident Lecturer in Chemistry at Camell University in 1932, presented a series of lectures describing the results of his investigations, extending over a period of mare than twenty years, on the preparation, the chemical and physical properties, and the structure of the hydrides of boron and silicon. It is indeed gratifying to see these lectures collected as a unit which maintains the excellent standards established by the previous lecturers of this series. The value of the text is augmented through the careful revision by Professor J. Papish and Dr. W. J. O'Leary of the preliminary translation made by Cleveland Abbe, Jr. The aims and accomplishments of the author are admirably expressed in the followinglines which are quoted from his chapter entitled Retrospect: "In nature boron's dominating affinity for oxygen restricts it to the monotonous rile of boric acid and the borates, and prevents it from competing with carbon, its neighbor in the periodic system. "It is very stimulating to observe the change from the rich chemical possibilities of carbon, the fountain of terrestrial life, as one passes to its three neighboring elements boron, silicon, and "it-"=-..
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"To be sure, the three refractory non-metals carbon, boron. and silicon are so strikingly similar in their elemental form that even the older chemistry included them in a limited p u p . Their chemical behavior. however. showed hardly any recognizable similarities. Carbon had the greatest mobility and diversity. while silicon and boron were unvarying and restricted in their reactions. But today it is known that in the latter two elements there also slumber rich chemical possibilities which are not available in nature because of the great a5nity of silicon and boron for oxygen-possibilities which can be wakened only by the resources of the laboratory." An introductory lecture is given in the series on The Present Status of the Natural S e n c e s which is exceedingly interesting,
B.n & BAUER,INC.,3W Pearl Street. New York City, announces the publication of a new 28-page bwklet, No. U 3 , on the "Zsigmondy Ultrafiltration Apparatus and Membranes." These membranes, which are made from cellulose esters, h a w been used extensively in all branches of science for work in ultrafiltration, electroultrafiltration. dialysis, electrodialysis, osmosis, and other work requiring semipermeable membranes of graduated porosity. The booklet contains a s u m y of work that has been done in the field as well as a bibliography of 124 literature references. A second publication is a 14-page listing entitled "Gruebler-Hallborn Stains and Preparationsfor Miffoscopy." Copies of this catalog and list will be sent on request.
