BOOK REVIEWS have been achieved in France." (M. S. Blackett). The Germans permitted h i to continue his work in his laboratory at the College de France during the occupation, though of course under close surveillance. This was not very effective, however, because Molotov cocktaik, etc., were manufactured there under their very noses. Joliot-Curie was wrongfully a* cused of being s. collaborationist when in fact he was active in any way he could in the Resistance. After the close of the war, he engaged in a number of projects such as the reform of the system of higher education and of the national mientifie research. He was a leader in international peace movements and deplored the perversions of science as exemplified in the nuclear explosions over the Japanese cities. Palitiod, emnomic, and social problems of all kinds aroused his active interest and his deep sense of social justice and hatred of class discrimination led him to join the Socialist Party of France in 1934. Re broke with this party over the Spanish oivil war and impelled by his hatred of fascism (especially of Hitlerism) joined the French Communist Party in 1949. This did not imply that he approved of the excesses and atrocities carried out by the totalitarian governments of the Soviet Union and China. But his political enemies in France used his membership in the Communist party as an excuse to force his
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ouster as High Commissioner of Atomic Energy in 1950. His wife died in 1956, like her mother a martyr to her researches involving radioactive materials, and hie death in 1958 was most probably due to the same cause. This volume is not a biography in the normal mnse of the term. The author, a physicist, collaborator and close friend of Joliot-Curie has rather attempted to give a sympathetic picture, based on personal eontact and letters, speeches, papers, etc., of this brilliant French scientist. The book is well worth reading and is recommended to mature soientists and students and also to the general reader.
The lectures make a fascinating prologue for the development of chemistry over the last 25 years. The volume begins with F. W. Aston's awsrd for the development of the mass spectograph, and the lectures of H. C. Urey on hydrogen and deuterium, and I. JoliotCurie and F. Joliot on radioactive elements follow in later years. Important developments in biological chemis try may be traced through the presentations. Basic physical chemistry concepts and technological developments which opened new psthwsys of knowledge were also recognized. Volume I (1901-1921), which will complete the current series, is scheduled to appear late in 1966.
RALPHE. OESPER Uniuersity of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio
Nobel Lecturer in Chemistry. 2, 1922-1941
Volume
Published for the Nohel Foundation by the American Elsevier Publishing Co., 506 pp. Figs. New York, 1966. xii and tables. 17 X 24.5 em. $85. for set of three vols.
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Elsevier's second volume of English translations of Nobel lectures in chemistry (see THIS JOURNAL 42, 346 [19651) Contains 20 lectures from 1922 through 1941. The format is the same as the volume previously reviewed.
Erratum The review of "The Mystery of Matter" edited by Louise B. Young (TEIS JOURNAL, 43, A544 [June, 19661), indicated that a. typographicd emor had appeared on p. 374. This was not an error in the book. Darwin had indeed obtained the classical 3:l ratio with sweet peas to which "Darwin's experiments" pertain (according to Ruth Moore, who authored this segment of the hook). G. W. B., Jr.
