RECENT BOOKS T m TECUNICAI.ARTSAND SCIENCESOF ~m ANCIENTS.Albert Naberger. Translated by Henry L. Brose, MA., D.Phil. (Oxon), F.1nst.P. The Macmillan Co., New York City, 1930, xxxii 518 pages. 16 X 23 cm. 676 Illustrations. $10.00.
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This is a book with which any one will find i t easy t o spend an hour in looking a t the pictures and in reading the legends which accompany them. The illustrations average more than one to each page. It is a hook in which the reviewer, after reading for a while, wished to read still one section mare, and again still another, until the evening was gone. I t is a hook to be read and a book to be consulted, a hook for every library of engineering or science or history, and a hook for all who have found pleasure in a visit to a great Art Museum. I t is a challenge t o those who value the Ancients solely because of their language and literature. High-school students will profit by an opportunity to examine it. A copy ought t o be in the high-school library where it will serve t o supplementand perhaps t o neutralize and set in proper perspective--the instruction which the students receive in the political history of the Ancients. The author points out that the technical activity of man has had its periods of wax and wane, that ancient times and the present are alike in being times of great activity, and that technical science during the Middle Ages "suffered stagnation in consequence of being restricted within the narrow limits and regulations imposed by the system of guilds which rigorously prescribed the hours of work, the number of qualified workmen, the types of raw material to he used, as well as the shape and size of all the means involved." Our present scientific knowledge of course vastly exceeds that of the Ancients, hut the Ancients appear to have used such as they had unceasingly and to better advantage than we do. Time and pains were no object to them, and slave labor was abundant. About one-third of the hook is devoted to matters which are really chemical, metals and metallurgy, the preparation and treatment of leather, fermentation, oils, fats, soaps, and perfumes, preserving and embalming, ceramics, glass, dyes and dyeing, paints and pigments, etc. But it would be an exceptional chemist who would not be interested in the rest of the hook, in the technical applications of physical principles, mechanics and machines, methods of producing fire, lighting and heating, town-planning, fortifications, dwellings, monmnents and public buildings, building materials, water supply, drains and sewers, irrigation, roads and bridges, ships and ship-building, harbors, etc. TENNEYL. DAVIS MASS. INST.OF TBC~WDLOOY C ~ ~ a m n lMnss. ;~.
T m MOSTIWORTANT MILESTONES M TBE DEVELOPMENT OF CEEMISTRYDURING THH LAST ONE HUNDREDAND FIPTY YEARS. (In Russian.) B. N. Mashulkin. Academy of Science of U. S. S. R., Leningrad, 1932. 116 pp. 15 X 23 cm. Rubles, 1.25. In this very compact h w k Professor Menshutkin gives us an excellent survey of the development of modern chemical science. In order to bring out its continuous growth and logical development, he devotes considerable space t o an account of the genesis of its underlying concepts. The book is subdivided as follows: Preface; I, Chemistry before 1770; 11, The Chemical Revolution of the Close of the Eighteenth Century; 111, Combination between Chemical Elements; IV, The Atomic Hypothesis in Chemistry; V, The Rise of Structural Chemistry; VI, The Victory of the Molecular Theory; VII, The Chemical Elements and Spectrum Analysis; VIII, The Periodic Law and the Periodic System of the Elements; IX, The Periodic System, New Chemical Elements, and Valence; X, Physical Chemistry and the Phase Rule;
XI, Radioactivity and the Radioactive Elements; XII, The Structure of the Atom and of Matter; XIII, Atomic Numbers and Isotopes; XIV. What is an Element? and Conclusion. The present review has been prepared with the help of Nicholas D. Constan. We hope that Professor Menshutkin will soon give us the "History of Russian Chemistry" which he is so well qualified to write. TENNEYL. DAVIS MASS.INST. OF TBCANOLODY CA~~DWGB M, a s .
A NEW NOMENCLATURE oa CEEMISTRY. Lyman S@elding. (Reproduced from the Original, 1796.) After supplying its own historical needs the American Phannaceutical Association has on hand a number of copies of reproductions of "A New Nomenclature of Chemistry proposed by Messrs. De Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fourcroy; with Additions and Improvements by Lyman Spalding. M.B., Lecturer on Chemistry in Dartmouth University." Dr. Lyman Spalding is the Father of the United States Pharmacopaeia, now in its Eleventh Decennial Revision. The size of the booklet is 23 X 28 cm.-12 pages in heavy paper cover. I n order t o defray the cost of reproduction a charge of $1.00 per copy postpaid is made. Those desiring a copy should address American Pharmaceutical Association, 10 W. Chase St., Baltimore, hld.
INTROD~CTORY COLLEGE CHEMISTRY. Horace G. Deming, Professor of Chemistry, University of Nebraska. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. New York City. 1933. xii 590 pp. 158 Figs., 56 Tables (unnumbered). 14 X 21.5 cm. 83.00. The author believing that "chemistry is often made unattractive by generalizing too early" has first considered "some of the phenomena afforded by the chemical landscape as a whole," which, in turn, "implies historical perspective and command of general principles.'' The preface leads the reader to expect too much in this respect, for we find "Early Views with Regard to Matter" on p. 3, "Two Kinds of Properties" on p. 17, "Law of Conservation of Weight," on p. 32, etc. The first extensive generalization-Dalton's Atomic Theory-appears on p. 66. Grantedly, one isn't in the field of chemistry until atoms and molecules have found a place in the imaginationand the development of the imagination should not be halted just because one is in the "teens" of his freshman y-. Withal, the author has, perhaps, remained as closely t o his ideal as is humanly possible. The hook is divided into four sections: Preliminary (195 pp.). The Non-metals (244 pp.), The Metals (98 pp.), and Organic Chemistry (34 pp ), these heing followed by a Conclusion and Appendix in which is included either a re-statement or page reference to sixty-five important tenns. While the arrangement of material in Part I is somewhat different from that found in most introductory chemistry texts, the totality is not widely variant. The kinetic molecular theory is absent as such, hut is found imbedded in the presentation of "The States of Matter" in which is also included the "Brownian Movement." Thirteen pages are devoted to "Hydrogen Ion." The historical perspective of the chapter on Ions is maintained from Faraday's experiments through the Arrhenius picture closing with the structure of the atom. With but eight to ten departures the chapters are of about a desirable size for purposes of instruction and study. The study of the metals is somewhat unique in that most of this material is brought together in one chapter of 31 pages, with little or nothing concerning their more utilitarian compounds. The chapters concerned with Mortars and Cements, the Ceramic Industries, and Iron contain some very valuable cultural information. Some of the
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