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radioactive families, the displacement law, the nucleus, artificial disruption, the neutron, artificial radioactivity, and even the prediction of fission. Many snatches of delicious humor are scattered through the four hundred pages. The indescribable picture of Rutherford in the early days a t Montreal sitting before the electroscope with a pair of round cuffs prominently in view, borrowed for the picture from one of the students. His own sense of humor frequently comes to light. Jacques Loeb, whom he met in California, he describes a8 a “worse enthusiast than I am.” On hearing a student from another university claiming his professor had stolen his ideas without giving due credit, he admonished, “Well, i t never does t o quarrel with your Mother’s milk.” Again his delightful arraignment of a colleague, the Professor of Philosophy, “When you come t o think of it, Alexander, all that you have said and all you have written during the,last thirty years-what does i t amount to? Hot air! Hot air!” And Alexander’s reply accusing Rutherford of being a noble savage and advising him t o continue so. Rutherford always delighted in twitting chemists and poking sly fun a t chemistry. The tables were turned when in 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In his address of acceptance he said he had “dealt with many rapid transformations, but t h e quickest he had met was his own transformation in one moment from a physicist t o a chemist.” During the World War and again in his later years, he devoted much time to public service; he organized a national institute for the acquisition and distribution of radium for therapeutic use; he was adviser on industrial problems of first importance t o the empire; he injected new life into the meetings of the Royal Society and &s its president rendered i t invaluable service by his distinguished leadership. Rutherford’s ashes lie beneath the flagstones of Westminster Abbey, in exalted company, close beside Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Kelvin. But somewhere in freer space and outdoor air, in Cambridge or Manchester, in Montreal or New Zealand, should rise a nobler monument in memory of the greatest experimenter and interpreter of physical phenomena of all time. S. C. LIND.
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Some Problems in Adsorption. By J. K. ROBERTS. x 120 pp. London: Cambridge University Press; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939. Price: $2.00. This book is one of a series of Cambridge Physical Tracts, the aim of which is to provide authoritative accounts of subjects of topical interest by those actively engaged in research. Generally speaking, this book deals with the development of new experimental and theoretical methods for the study of adsorption of gases on solids. Dr. Roberts has conclusively shown t h a t the accommodation coefficient of helium or neon may be used as a measure of the extent to which metallic surfaces, particularly tungsten, are covered with adsorbed layers of gases. Dr. Roberts and coworkers have confined themselves t o simple systems where the composition of the substrate is definitely known and which can be reproduced and kept free from impurities. The results indicate in a very striking manner the difference between adsorption on a perfectly clean surface and on one already coated with a film of impurities, as will be the case in most adsorbing materials aa ordinarily prepared. Professor Roberts has also developed a new technique for the experimental study of heats of adsorption and the extent t o which adsorption occurs on a clean surface by using the adsorbing wire as a calorimeter. The mathematical theory of the heat of adsorption with interaction between the adsorbed particles has been worked out in detail for both mobile and immobile films.
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This research has been particularly fruitful in providing experimental evidence which is reliable enough t o be useful in testing such proposed theories. The tract is really a collection of the various recent publications of Dr. Roberts and coworkers in the Laboratory of Colloid Science a t Cambridge, together with a complete set of references to related works. The reviewer considers Dr. Roberts’ work to be the most significant fundamental research on adsorption in progress a t the present time. This book should be read by every one who is interested in the problem of adsorption. A. B. VAN CLEAVE.
Casein and its Industraal Applications. By EDWINSUTERMEISTER AND FREDERICR L. BROWNE. Second edition. 405 pp. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1939. Price: $6.50. Rapidly increasing use of casein in American industry, coupled with many important technical developments in its production, made i t desirable t o rewrite this monograph. One or the other of the authors, sometimes with collaboration, has written seven of the thirteen chapters. The other six have been contributed by experts in their respective fields. There has been a rearrangement of chapters which makes the presentation of the subject more logical. Chapter I-“Casein in Milk and its Isolation’’-is new and is a better opening chapter than the one on the “Organic Chemistry of Casein” which introduced the first edition. The chapters on casein in food and casein in medicine, of the first edition, have been combined into one and a new chapter on casein in leather has been added, with the result t h a t this edition is much improved. Those interested in the subject will find t h a t the material of the earlier edition has been considerably expanded. They will also welcome the more extensive citations to the literature, including references to many patents. I t is the opinion of the reviewer t h a t this edition will be found t o be a good deal more useful than the earlier one. The printing is good and the illustrations are well chosen. I t can be recommended t o those interested in this important protein. L. H. REYERSON.
ERRATA Volume 44, Number d, February, 1940 I’rsge 811: The sentence beginning in line 25 should mad as follows: “The molecular weight of D20was taken as 1.1117 times that of ordinary water.” Page 267: The last line in column 2 of table 1 should be 1.0938 instead of 0.9938.
