hlontreal, where he got the r e d training he needed. On his return to Germany, IIahn was given space in the basement of Emil Fischer's Institut and began the career lations between zaisite and plagiocla.se has that constituted his life work. His activireplaced t,he work of Hamsberg (1932) reties were transferred to the Kaiser Wilhelm ferred to in the chaptn. on metamorphism Institut a t Dnhlem (n. slhurh of Berlin) in in the earlier edition. 1912 and after World War I, he relimed The discussion of the composition of t,here until Warkl Wnr I1 brought nhortt its meteorites reflects the current interest destruction hy the Allied bombers. He in composition of rhondrites. The tahle had numerous en-workers bnt the most in the earlier edition on frequency of prominent of these were Lise hIeitner and meteoritic islls showed three classes onl>-, Fritz Strassmann. irons, stony-irons, and atones. I11 the The volume under review is trot very new editiuu thole :are four classes of satisfactory for those who seek to learn the meteorites, irons, ston--irons, achondrites, intimate details of Hahn's long life. and ehondrites. Similarly in the earlier Though of interest to those concerned x-ith edition, the table c r u the composition of the minutiae of his numerous experiments meteoritic mather pave t,he "average on the radioactive elements, their degradacompositiol~ of rneteorit,ic matter," tions, transmutations, etc., and the various whereas in the new rdition, the same table hypotheses and the like, the great hulk of lists the composition of the "average the readers will likely find these details chorrdl.ite" instead. I n this field Dr. somewhat boring. Even the remarkable Mason is most expen nnd we can see that discovery of bhe fission of uranium is not this change in t,ermiaology is much to he dramatized, as it might well have been. .\ preferred. The disrussion of the theory nnmber of Appendixes are devoted tc, that meteorites originated from a distranslations (into English) of some of mpted planet has h e n eliminated, pel; Hahn's papers and R. useful section giver haps significantly. the biographical details concerning some of An addition which will be u s e f d to the main personages who were active in the teachers and students who use this book field of nuclear chemistry. The Introdocas a, textbook ia Appendix IV, Some tion by Glem~Sesborg is a deserved tl.ihute Questions and Problems. from one leader in this field to mrtther. Teachers and s h d e n t s of general Though the publisher states in a Pobchemistry will find this to be a useful lisher's Postscript: "Deeply distressed by sourcehook for material on the chenlical the firat atomic explosions, for which he nature of t,he world a m m d us. felt a personal responsibility, he has hecame a convinced opponent of atomic J. A. SCHI-FLE weaponry," it is unfortunate that Hahn A-rw M a i m Highlands Univn.sity did not include a statement of his sentiI,as 1-egos ments in the .4otobiography. Last hut not least, the translator has done an eseellent jab.
BOOK REVIEWS
Otto Hahn:
A Scientific Autobiography
Otto Hahn, GMtingen, West Germany. T~.anslated and edited by W i l l y Ley. Int~.oduct~iouby Glenn T. Seaborg. Charles Scrihner's Sons, New York, 1066. rxiv 296 pp. Photographs. 15 X 23.5 cm. $7.95,
+
Otto Hahn was horn in 1879 and this autobiography appewed in German in 1962, i.e., when he was well over eighty. The Nobel Prize in rhpmistry was awarded to Hahn for the year 1944 and in 1066 along with Meitner and Strasamam he shared the Enrica Fermi Award. Ile sw "visiting professor" st Cornell in 193::. He was deported hy the United States and British forces in 194: and interned near Cambridge, England. After the war he returned to West Germany and served as president of the Max Planck Society from I948 to his retirement in 1960. Ni~mernns honors have been bestowed on him and he is sometimes called "the father of nnrlenr chemistry." Hahn was trained in organic chemistr>and then sent to England by a dyestuff m&n!~facturerto learn English. He %-a. given permission to work in Ramsay's labarittory and the latter suggested that he do some work with radium compound-, even though Hahn knew nothing of thi. field. He became a. convert and decided to go to Canada to work with Rotherford at
RALPHX.OE~PER University 0.1 Cincinnati Cincinnnli. Ohio
Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganirchen Chemie. 8. Auflage, System Nummer 57, Nickel. Teil B, Lieferung 3, Schluss der Verbindungen
Edited by E . H. E. Pielsch and the Gmelin Institute. Verlag Chemie., GMBH, WeinheimlBergslrasse, 1966. xxxvii f 4 i 8 pp. Figs. and tables. 17.5 X 25.5 cm. $111. Compounds of nickel and boron thmugh nickel and manganese (by the Gmelin system) are covered in this volume. Literature evaluation is complete through 1984, and some subjects are covered through 1965. This volume hriugs together ior the first time the data, on nickel double d t s and related systems. Recent studies on the Ni-B, N-C, Xi-P, and Ni-As systems are carefully evaluated and citations are given to establish the existance of Ni(1V). Several other volumen on nickel are projected For puhlicstion in 196i.
JANETB. Yhx DOREK College of Wooaler TFooater, Ohio
Volume 44, Number
7, July 1967
/
A61 1
