RECENT BOOKS MEN, MONEYAND MOLECULES.Williams Haynes. Publisher of Chemical Industries. Third edition. Doubleday. Doran & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1936. viii 186 pp. 13 X 19 cm. 11 illustrations. $1 50.
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Some little hooks have a great deal t o tell us and this is one of them. The author says, "Making chemicals is a complicated business. I t involves a nice combination of chemistry, engineering, and economics. All three elements are closely interrelated." This is true, hut it is often very di6cult for the student looking out from the laboratory t o realize that science has an economic aspect and it is still harder for the layman looking into the laboratory t o realize that society about him is dependent on what comes out of these walls. Mr. Haynes has succeeded admirably in showing both sides how essential they are to each other. His is a simple history of the part played by the chemical industry in producing modern civilization, including its economic and political aspects, and being written by a man with a very happy faculty for exposition, the chapters will be interesting to layman and student alike. He has endeavored to present the subject a little from the American point of view, and that is no harm, because be makes us more conscious than we perhaps are that we are leaders in the making and using of processed malecules. Chapter I, Molecule Making, points out that it is the industry engaged in this art that exemplifies the fact that progress means better living conditions for all concerned, including the working man in the plant. Chapter 11, Man Puts Chemicals t o Work, is a lightning survey of the whole history of chemical manufacture from the caveman t o thecartel. I t is welldone. Chapter 111,Molecules and Machines, carries a title that is selfexplanatory. Chapter IV, Chemicals Come to America, is our side of the question. Chapter V. Munitions and Molecules, treats of the interplay of Chemistry and the World War, showing how the former determined the course of the latter, and describes the rise in importance of the industry after the contlict. Chapter VI, The Ultra-modern Industry, emphasizes the rapidity with which conditions are changing. I t emphasizes particularlv the tremendous economic erowth of the chemical mann~, fa
