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was ready to revolutionize microanaly sis. As most revolutions, this one is not without its undesirable side effects. T h e rapid expansion of H P L C in the middle of t h e 1970's has generated a large audience hungry to find out what H P L C is all about and how to use it in the laboratory. T o cater to this need, books are appearing in rapid succession; some of them are better; others are worse. Even the lat ter variety is written with a lot of goodwill and an earnest desire to in form. Yet, all good intents cannot make up for the shortcomings of some books written in haste without suffi cient preparation. It is a pity that, in my opinion, the book of Hamilton and Sewell does not qualify for the " b e t t e r " class of books on H P L C . It says in the preface t h a t "advances in the theoretical aspects of H P L C and instrumentation have reached a plateau and future develop ments may consist of refinements rather t h a n major steps forward". In its stead, we get a book which is a rather confused and confusing exposi tion of the subject as far as the theo retical aspects, the taxonomy, and in
strumentation of H P L C are con cerned. This reviewer thinks t h a t the above-mentioned plateau is far away, and today it would take some thaumaturgists to write a book of lasting value to the practitioners of the art of liquid chromatography. It is hoped that the reader shares this sentiment, which should restrain her or him from concluding t h a t this book is the result of an inadequate digestion of the subject and unskilled use of scissors in pasting together the book from a vari ety of sources, mostly from pamphlets and by suppliers. A thorough editing could have been a great help, although many errors come from a poor insight into the chromatographic process and insufficient experience with the tech nique. When the authors a t t e m p t to go beyond what the reader can find in better manufacturers' literature, they sometimes appear to be disoriented. This may be the reason why the few original illustrations (e.g., Figs. 2.3 to 2.5 t h a t try to convey graphically the way convection and diffusion cause band spreading) are quite unsuccess ful. In Fig. 2.7 it is claimed t h a t the H vs. u curve is linear in liquid chroma
tography, but a t the turn of the page, Fig. 2.8 shows a curved plot of the cor responding reduced parameters. Such inconsistencies are quite frequent in the book, and errors are abundant. It also should be pointed out t h a t the copy editor failed to remove the linguistic flaws that permeate the text. On the other hand, the architecture of the book is sound. After an intro ductory chapter the theory of chroma tography is reviewed; then the subject of equipment, stationary and mobile phases are treated in individual chap ters. T h e following chapters are devot ed to "developing a chromatogram," "preparative H P L C , " and "trace anal ysis." At the end a lexical listing of al ready outdated examples for the ap plication of H P L C to the analysis of various types of mixtures is presented. T h e authors emphasize their prag matic approach, and indeed this is the strength of the book which is not short of useful data. For novices who badly need some guidance, the book will be of immediate help, before they find a clearer, more mature t r e a t m e n t of H P L C . If only this was the goal of the writing, the authors might even have succeeded.
THE ONE AND ONLY..... Recording Data Processor Chromatopac C-R1A
• Chromatogram and data recording by thermal printer plotter. • Recording of names of compounds. • Up to 339 peaks. • Even exponential signals can be processed. • Unique multiple calculation function (Calorie, Vapour pressure, Specific gravity, etc • Eight files for parameters.
SHIMADZU SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, INC.
• Complete automatic analysis. • Automatic change over of parameters by time programming. • Measurement of peak-top height or average height is also possible. • New grouping function. • Calibration curve, not passing the origin, is available. Self diagnostic function.
SHIMADZU SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, INC. 9147 Red Branch Road, Columbia, Md ?1045. U S A Phone (301)b96-6978 Telex ?3087ϋ5
