JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
682 'in petroleum ether gives formaldchydc and acrolcia, irrdicnting ..>nddition." T l h , of course, should bc "1,Zaddition" (page I . t i e . lbferrnce (28) (nncc 9. Iso~rcur)should be
ITowrvrr, irr spitcof thesccriticisms, thegood points outweight .I." I d points and rho revirrser is tiillmg to stste fhxt pwple ntrrcstcd will find much of value in 1hi.r huok.
STEEL AND ITS HEAT TREATMENT,VOL. m D. K. Bullens and The Metallurgical Staff of the Battelle Memorial Institute. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1949. Fifth edition. xrxiv + 606 pp. 142 tables 283 figs. 15 X 23 cm. $7.50.
TEE fifth edition of this excellent book brings up to date the informationon engineering, alloy, constructional alloy, and special steels. The first section, devoted to engineering alloy steels, contains five chapters which discuss the general properbies of steel, the effect of alloys on the phase diagram, alloy elements present in very small amounts, effect and cost of some alloying elements, influence of allov elements on steels which am not heat treated. -~ The second section, di~cumingalloy sreel~in whioh h a r d ~ ~ is ss the w i n ohjrcrive, contains seven ch~lptersgiving i~rfornlntion covering various alloy steels, steel cnstiug, the probloms in obtaining toughness a t high hnrdnass, spring steel manufacture, and carhorizing of alloy steels. The third section contains nine chapters which take up different aspects of special steel treatment; among the topics discussed are nitriding, steels for low temnerature.. hieh-temnerature service. corrosion resistance.' we&; resistance. variousiml and die steels. and m m e t i c steels. ~~~~~~~~~~~~, ~, This well-writt,en volume should be of great interest to teachers of physical chemistry who are interested in the application of their material. It would be an excellent text for a course in steel metallurgy. ARTHUR A. VERNON ~
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most basic contributions in this field and the applications this phenomenon has found in science and industry. The chapter dealing with thixotropic clay sols lacks reference to some fundamental obsemations which have clearly proved that the cause of this phenomenon is no longer a debatable issue. In the chap ter on clay films, reference to the origins1 discovery and its industrial application is lacking entirely. Finally, the reviewer feels that a book on "The Colloid Chemistry of the Silicate Minerals" should a t least give credit to some previous contributions in this field, as for example, the article "Colloid chemistry of clays" which appeared in Chemical Revie208 in 1945; or the chap ter on "Colloid chemistry of clay minerals and clay films" as it appeared in Volume VI of Jerome Alexander's "Colloid Chemistry" in 1946; the book on "Traite de Physico-chimie des Silicates" by P. Gilard, published in 1947; and the book on "Studies on Ionic Exchange" by L. Wiklander, published in 1946. The reviewer also feels that a reference to W. P. Kelley's book, "Cation Exchange in Soils," published as A.C.S. Monograph 109 by the Reinhold Publishing Corporation in 1948 should not have been overlooked. In spite of these deficiencies, this book deserves the attention of all those who are interested in a summariaing, although not quite up to date, review of the structure and shape of silicate minerals and their chemical and physical interpretation.
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PRE-MEDICAL PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
F. A. Matsen, Jack Myers, and Norman Hackerman, Asso ciate Profesaor3, Universitp of Texas. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1949. viii 344 pp. 104 figs. 57 tables. 13.5 X 21 cm. $4.75.
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THE COLLOID CHEMISTRY OF THE SILICATE MIN. ERALS C. Edmund Marshall, Professor of Soils, University of Missouri, Columbus, Missouri. Academic Press, Inc.. Publishera, New York, 1949. Volume I of Agronomy. ir 195 pp. 21 tables. 85 figs. 16 X 24 cm. $5.80.
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THISbook is published as Volume I of "Agronomy," a series of monographs prepared under the auspices of the American Society of Agronomy. The author and the publisher deserve credit for beihg the first to write end print a book specifically dedicated to a comprehensive discussion of a field which has so far not received the attention it unquestionably deserves. The chapters dealing with the silicate structures, their three-dimensional and planar frameworks, are very well outlined and offer an excellent condensation of our present concepts. The chapter on size and shape of clay particles also deserves special attention, because it is the first comprehensive discussion based an electron miorosoope studies. Unfortunately the author seemingly was not familiar with the work of Nils Hast of Stockholm in this field, who has made very valusble contributions. The revlawer, tun~selfa colloid chemist, is, however, eomewhat disturbed about the title of the book, because it might give the reader only a. very one-sided pioture of the importance colloid chemistry ia playing in this field. Just to mention a few points on which this opinion is based: I n the chapter on optical properties the a athor disouases orientation in flowing suspension and electrieal orientation; he neglected to mention, however, the
THE topics covered in many physical chemistry courses for premedical students are about the same as those covered instandard courses; differences are often in detail of treatment and in the extent to which mathematics is used. The authors of this text, however, have chosen their subject matter with more than the customary emphasis on those topics and illustrations which have obvious connection with medical ~tudies. Whether or not they have chosen wisely is a matter of individual opinion. They have, far example, devoted almost a third of the text to surface phenomena: adsorption, surface films, electrokinetics, stability of colloids, membrane potentials, and so on. This emphasis has been possible a t the cost of drastic condensation of some other topics. "Imperfect" gases, for example, have received only two pages, and enzymes, biologically important though they are, have received less than six lines. Some of the condensation has been accompanied by serious loss in clarity, as in the section on the gas constant, R (p. 53), which is so brief that it is doubtful if a student who is not already familiar with the material will be able to understand it. The concept of free energy and free energy change is introduced as early as it is needed, and it is used consistently. In view of the value of this concent. and the extent to which it is used in this text, the reviewer'fekls that space could profitably have been devoted to layiug a foundation for understanding it, rather than simply saying in a footnote (p. 105): "For the details of the distinction between heata and free energy a standard physical chemistry text should be consulted." The treatment of weak electrolyka is weakened, in the reviewer's opinion, by the decision of the authors to adopt neither the notation H.O+ for hydrogen (hydronium) ion, nor the Br$nsted concept of acids and bases. For example, the hydrolysis of an ammonium salt is represented by the equation (p. 175): NH4+
+ HtO = NEtOH + H +
whereas the process involved is more nearly indicated by the representation: NH4+
+ H20
NHI
+ HaO+
