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PAY DIRT
Farming and Gardening with Composts. J. I. Rodak, Editor, Organic Gardening. Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1945. x 242 pp. 12 X 23.5 cm.
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"A REVOLDTION in farming and in gardening is in progress all over the world. If I were asked to sum up in a few words the basis of this movement and the general resulta, I should reply that a fertile soil is the foundation of healthy crops, healthy live stock, and last hut not least healthy human beings. By a fertile soil is meant one to which Nature's law of return has been faithfully applied, so that it contains an adequate amount of freshly prepared humus in the form of compost from both vegetable and animal wastes."-from the Introduction, by Sir Albert Howard, author of "An Agricultural Testament." This hook states the beliefs, and the observations on which they are based, of the "compost cultists." The arguments are provocative and the facts irrefutable, but the hook obviously does not have all the final answem. Soil conservation is a losing battle unless the dangers of chemurgy and other large scale uses of crops are recognized and farming is planned in such a way as to augment, not deplete, the fertility of the life-giving top soil. The nutrient needs of the olanta are orobablv as obscure now as the need of animals for v i k n s wasin 19C6 Wbile this book may mix faith and hope on one hand with keen observation and deduction on the other, we eome from it with the feeling that until chemists and others have worked out a complete knowledge of the requirements for soil fertility, the warning bf the authoriemains valid: "Composting, croprotation, fallowing, and green-manure crops are essential, if this way of supplying industry [chemurgy] is to be anything but a long-range disaster." Chemistry teachers have an obligation to become familiar with the lessons taught by books such as this, as it is through well-informed teachers that the facts will become known to the people. LAURENCE 8. FOSTER Wm~mom Aasen~n Wmaamnn, Massacaosmws
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TEXTBOOK OF BIOCHEMISTRY
Philip H. Mitchell, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Brown University. First Edition. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York 640 pp. 84 figs. 79 tahles. 14 X and London, 1946. xv
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22 cm. $5.00. Tars TEXTBOOK is designed to present to the student just entering the field of hiochemistry a comprehensive idea of the present knowledge of the chemical reactions that normally take place in living animals. Emphasis in the text bas been given to intermediary metabolism, enzymes, vitamins, and the relationship between metabolism and nutrition. The.earlier chapters are devoted to the chemistry of the foodstuffs, including a chapter on photosynthesis. Vitamins, enaymes, digestion, blood and lymph, acid-base regulation, metabolism, and the other topics of physiolokcal - chemistry follow. The concludina-chaoters . of the book are devoted to the composition of foods: dietetics, the chemistry of animal tissues, hormones, and chemotherapy. At the end of each chapter are references to reviews_andoriginal papers dealing with the topics treated in the chapter. An author as well as a subject index is included a t the end of the hook. Biochemistry has developed so extensively in the last decades and now emh&s so many ramifiwltiom that the author of a
textbwk on this subject is confronted with a serious problem. Either he must restrict the scope of the hook drastically, giving empharis on fundamentals and adequate explanations, for .the beginning student, or, if all-incIusive, his hook tends to assume the proportions of a reference hook, leading to the disconragement of the student. The author of the present hook has eudeavored to steer a course between them two extremes and has included extensive references to the literature for detail that could not he incorporated profitably in the text. With the needs of the firsbyear medical student in mind, this reviewer believes that too much detail to certain subjects has been given. Curtailment of the discussion of the conligwatian of the sugars and polysacchmides, the mechanism of enzyme action and redox potential, and omission of the chapter on photosynthesis would be desirable. Although the hook is carefully written, the author assumes a t times s better background in physical and organic chemistw than is eenerallv found amane . . . beginning medical students. For example, the statement (page 62) that the cis arrangement of oleic acid was established hv "the molecular equivalents required to produce a manomalecul& film on a water surface of known area" will be meaningless to the average medicd student. However, the reader of this book will be assured of an up to date presentation of the facts and theories of biochemistry with ample references to the older and current biochemical literature. The fascinating and newer work on antibiotics and the use of isotopes as tracers is included. 0
0 HANDBOOK OF CHEMISTRY Norbert Adolph Lunge, lecturer in Chsmjshy at Cleveland College of Western Reserve Universitg, Compiler and Editor, Gordon M. Folker, General Eledrio Company, Assistant, and Richard Stevens Bun'ngton, Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Department. Sixth Edition. Handbaok Publishers, Inc., Sand*, Ohio, 1946. xvi -!-2082 pp. 13.5 X 20 om. $7.00.
THIS NEW sixth edition of Lange's "Handbook of Chemistry'' deletes some of the engineering data included in earlier editions to make room for new material and extensions of revised tables. This includes modern concepts of matter, composition of sea water, numerical values of the gas constant, true capacity of glass vessels, etc. Omitted were the tables on pipes, valves, and fittim. and flow of water and of ass in D~DW. The hiwest chanie'is the completely revised andenlargkd table of phys&l constants of inorganic compounds which includm, for the first time and wherever possible, data on refractive index. A total number of 2603 comrnunds are considered. The handbook is full of information under the general classifications of elements, inorganic and organic compounds, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, industrial chemistry mathematical tables, and index. Lange's Handbook has already stood the test of use, ltnd this newer, more complete edition surpasses the others. TABLES OF FRACTIONAL POWERS Lyman 3. Briggs, Director of the National Bureau of Standards, and Arnold N. Lowan, Project Directqr of the Mathematics Tables Project. Columbia University Press, New York, 1946. m 489 p p 11 tables, 19.5 X 27 an. 57.50. 0
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