NEW BOOKS Mass-spectra and Isotopes. By F. W. ASTON. 248 pp. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1933. Price: $4.80. The present volume replaces the earlier well-known monograph of the author published by the same company under the title “Isotopes” (second edition, 1924). In expanding the title the author has sought to restrict the scope of the book somewhat, though its length has necessarily increased with the expansion of the experimental material and of its theoretical significance. A very welcome part of the new book gives a detailed account of the construction of the new focusing mass-spectrograph and of the theory and practice of its use. The more accurate values of the relative mass of individual atoms have shown definitely the departure from the whole number rule and have established the highly important “packing fractions” for most elements and the general shape of the curve as a function of atomic mass. As sixty-six of the possible eighty-four elements have now been subjected to isotopic analysis, the statistics have a broad significance. Only twenty simple elements have been found, and no element of odd atomic number has been found to have more than two isotopes. Two very interesting chapters on the isotopic effect in molecular and atomic spectra have been added. As we have just entered on new and highly interesting phases of nuclear transmutation, Aston’s packing fractions are an indispensable guide in the calculation of the interchange of mass and energy. S. C. LIND. Modern Thermodynamics by the Methods of Willard Gibbs. By E. A . GUGGENHEIM. 206 pp.; 10 figures. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1933. Price: $3.50. xvi This book can be heartily commended to the attention of teachers and advanced students of thermodynamics. That it is not written for the beginner is evident from the fact that the author pays scant attention t o the experimental basis and physical significance of the first and second laws, contenting himself with advising the reader to make himself familiar with the treatment in Planck’s “Thermodynamics.” The theorems of thermodynamics are developed in a logical way, the mathematical method employed being the straightforward, analytic one. The author quite rightly criticizes the “method of cycles” on the ground that when it is simple i t is usually inexact and when it is exact, i t is usually complicated. The author must also be commended for employing, as Gibbs did, the illuminating term, “chemical potential,” in place of the verbose expression, “the partial molal free energy.” A very valuable feature of the book is the author’s treatment of activities and activity coefficients. The serious student will find especially helpful the chapters on electrochemical systems, gravitational field and surface phases. F. H. MACDOUGALL.
+
Fundamentals of Biochemistry in Relation to H u m a n Physiology (Fourth Edition). By T. R. PARSOKS.12 x 18.5 cm.; 435 pp.; 26 figures. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1933. Baltimore : William Wood & Company, 1933. Price : $3.00. The emphasis of this book is on fundamentals. In automobile parlance it is the 713
