VOL.5, No. 10
RECENT BOOKS
will convince one that it will fill, to a very great extent, the needs of the most advanced worker. Although Chapter XXX is devoted wholly t o applications and particular cases, the aim of the book is to treat of fundamentals so as to give it maximum utility. No attempt has been made t o indude a discussion of all the uses of the hydrogen electrode. A large book is required t o properly cover merely the essentials of the subject. As the author says, "this enlarged edition remains more elementary in relation to the needs of today than was the first edition in relation t o the needs of its period." The third edition has been expanded enormously as the following comparison will show.
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a real necessity a t this time, hut is nevertheless pleased t o have the author's discussion of it available. I n conclusion, it is the reviewer's opinion that this is more than just another "new edition." It is so incomparably superior t o the earlier editions that one may view it as a new book, rendering them ohsalete. Certainly no teacher or advanced worker will fail t o have it on his bookshelf.
2nd edition 3rd edition 480 717 Pages Chapters 21 30 8 15 Appendices, etc. Pages of Bibliography 110 85 Figures 42 100
Nitroglycerine and Nitroglycerine Explosives. PHOKION NAO~M Ph.D., , Director of Scientific Laboratories, Alfred Nobel Dynamite Company, Hamburg, Germany. Authorized English translation with notes and additions by E. M. Symmes, Hercules Powder Company, Wilmington, Delaware. The Williams & Wilkins Company. Balti469 pp. Illusmore, 1928. xi trated. 15 X 22.8 cm. $7.00.
The bibliography alone has diminished. It has been made selective rather than comprehensive. This is because the number of papers on the subject has been increasing almost logarithmically with time. The book has been almost entirely rewritten t o accord with recent developments. The color chart has been very greatly improved. Most of the chapters are now prefaced by a quotation-sometimes whimsical, always pointed. Among the figures are included fine cuts of S. P. L. Soreusen, Svante Arrhenius, and Leonor Michaelis. Among the newer material one finds an expanded chapter on the choice of indicators, chapters on spectraphotometry and colorimetry, on free energy changes an quinhydrone and similar half cells; on metal oxide, oxygen and glass electrodes; on the theory of Debye and Hiickel; on non-aqueous solutions, etc. No really serious adverse criticism can be raised. One wonders whether the inclusion of a chapter on the interionic attraction theory of Debye and Huckel is
This book is the first to be published of the projected World Widide Chemical Series, under the general editorship of Professor E. Emmet Reid of The Johns H o ~ k i n s University. It describes the chemistry and manufacture of the most important of the peacetime explosivesand the civil uses of explosives are far more important than their military ones. Nitroglycerine explosives are used in engineering operations, for the building of canals, bridges, railroads, etc., and in coal and metal mining which lead t o the production of comfort and of power, of steel, and of manufactured articles of aII kinds. The hook, therefore, describes the science and the art of an industry which has been of great importance in making the world smaller and is fundamental t o the maintenance of the present industrial civilization. After an introductory chapter on the history of the subject, the book contains three principal sections which deal respeetively with Nitroglycerine, with Homologous and Related Nitric Esters, and with
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Nitroglycerine Explosives. These are followed by a Supplement on the analysis of nitroglycerine explosives, and by adequate author and suhiect indexes. The laboratory preparation of nitroglycerine and of the other nitric esters is described, their chemical, physical, and physiological properties are discussed, and plant scale manufacture of the explosive materials and of the finished explosives in cartridges is set forth in detail and illustrated with cuts of apparatus and machinery. The translator has described American practice, pointing out the respects in which it differs from the German. The laboratory sources of the knowledge behind the industry are mentioned with references. The reader feels that nitroglycerine explosives have been produced by research and that the research is still going on. The work is authoritative and will be accepted as standard. I t is printed on unglazed and unweighted paper, and is light in the handpleame to handle. I t augurs well for the Series which it initiates. TENNEYL. DAVIS M ~ s s ~ c n u s ~ INSTITUTE rr's oa TECHNOLOGY ~
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Wolcott Gibbs; Josiah Parsons Cooke, Jr.; Thomas Sterry Hunt; Francis Humphreys Storer; Charles William Eliot; James Mason Crafts; Josiah Willard Gibbs; Theodore William Richards. This pamphlet is section one, pages 9-24, of a larger booklet pertaining t o the Swampscott Meeting of the A. C. S. Additional material contained in this latter publication includes the following. "The Industries of New England" are described on pages 25-36. Notes on the early history of the New England States-"From Cape Cad to Concord"-occupy pages 37-50. The important place which education has always held in New England is brought out in "Higher Education in New England," pages 51-74, which portion includes a list of the various institutions of learning in that locality, with illustrations and comments on each. A note, pages 75-77, on "Du Pont in the Coated Textile Field," calls the reader's attention to the artistic and attractive Fabrikoid binding of the hoaklet. This material will be useful and suggestive to those interested in chemical
Notable New England Chemists. LYMAN Study Questions and Prohlems in Inorganic Chemistry for Colleges and UniC. NEWELL, Boston University, and versities. ALEXANDER SILVERXANN. TENNEY L. DAYIS,Mass. Inst. of Tech2nd edition. D. Van Nostrand Co., nology, 1928. 15 X 22.5 cm. 97 Inc., New York City, 1928. vi This pamphlet was prepared by the . . . . pp. 23.5 X 15.25 cm. S1.00. Division of History of Chemistry, AmerA long list of reference books accomican Chemical Society. It was distributed t o registered members of the Division a t panies these questions, which are arsvstematicallv for use with any . the Swampscott meeting of the Society, ranned standard first-year chemistry text. September 10-14, 1928. M. W. G. Extra copies may be obtained from the Secretary of the Division, Professor Tenney L. Davis. Mass. Inst. of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., far fifty cents each. Portraits and notes on the following men are contained therein: John Winthrop, Jr.; Lyman Spalding; Benjamin Silliman; Parker Cleaveland; Oliver Payson Hubbard; Eben Norton Horsford;
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