RECENT ROOKS FRONTIERS IN CHEMISTRY, VOLUME 111-ADVANCESIN NUCLEAR ular weight and the solubility of solids, the determination of CHEMISTUYAND THEORETICAL OROANICCHEMLSTRY.Edited equilibrium constants, and the examination of physicochemical by R. E . Burk, Plastics Department, E. I. du Pont de Nemours standards. The chapter on "Boiling and Condensation Phenomand Company, and Oliver Grumnzifl,Department of Chemistry, ena Observed under High Pressure" is well done and most Western Reserve University. Interscience Publishers, Inc.. interesting, although its inclusion in this work seems somewhat New York, 1945. ix 165 pp. 37 figs. 7 t a b l a 15 X 23 illogical. The photographs of this chapter are unusually clear. cm. $3.50. This book is well written and very readable. The illustrations This third in a series of books published under the auspices of are good. The text is supplemented by 88 tables of data, many Western Reserve University deals with the ways in which modern of them being of general interest. A novel feature is the lumping physical concepts are aiding in the solution of problems in in- of the 85 literature references a t the end of the hook. Besides organic and organic chemistry. The material is presented on the usual subject and author indexes there is an unusually dethe same high level of scholarship a the previous volumes. tailed table of contents. The surprise shown, page 55, "that no Again the book is not intended as a text but will be useful to the negative heteraazeotropes have bee6 found" is not entirely warranted. The hypothetical phase diagram of such a system teacher and research worker. points to the existence of two immiscible gaseous phases. Type, The series of lectures includes the following: Albert S. Keston, "Isotopes and Their Application to Bio- format, e t c , are all very good. No serious worker in the fields mentioned can afford to be unchemistry." The technique of using radioactive elements a< familiar with ebulliometric techniques and possibilities. T o tracers in studying biochemical problems is related. all such this hook is recommended without reservation. Hugh S. Taylor. "Applications of Isotopes in Catalytic Reac. MALCOLM M. HARING tions a t Surfaces." Studies of reaction mechanisms in surface UNIYBFSITY 0 s M&RYL*ND catalytic reactions have been greatly aided by using deuterium in COLLBOBPm., M A ~ Y L A N D various exchange reactions with hydrogen. An authority on catalysis has brought the subject up to date here. The use of other isotopes is included. BACTE~~OW AND G YALLIEDSUBJECTS. LOUISGershenfdd, ProH. R. Crane, "Techniques in Nuclear, Physics." This is a fessor of Bacteriology and Hygiene and Director of the Bacdescription of the apparatus (vacuum tubes, Van de Graaff teriological Laboratories a t the Philadelphia College of Phargenerator, and cyclotron) needed and methods used t o produce macy and Science in Philadelphia. Mack Publishing Comparticles for bombardments of atoms. pany, Eastan, Pennsylvania, 1945. xxiii f 561 pp. 20 figs. Leslie G. S. Brooker, "Resor,ance and Organic Chemistry." 17 X 25 cm. 56.00. A brief rCsum6 of the theory of resonance is given as well as its This book has evidently been developed by extending t h e application in describing the directing influence of substituents author's lecture notes on bacteriology and parasitology. I n this in benzene, the acidity of compounds containing the OH group, sense i t is peculiarly a product of Dr. Gershenfeld's energy and and the reactivity of compounds containing the carbonyl group. interest. It falls midway between a combined elementary and But this longest chapter in the volume (about half the entire intermediate teat and a reference book. In the first role its book) is devoted mainly t o the application of the theory of organization is overambitious; i t becomes too much of too little resonance to the problem of color and constitution. from the wide current ficlds of general and medical bacteriology. W. H. Rodebush, "The Hydrogen Bond and Its Significance to sanitary science, parasitology and pest control, immunology. Chemistry." Evidence for the existence of this phenomenon and chemotherapy. Few teachers would wish to include all of from infrared spectroscopy and the properties of the hydrogen these topics in a two-year bacteriology course, hut many might bond are discussed. desire a fuller development of the separate specialties. LEALLYN B. CLAPP The hook is much more valuable as a reference survey, or BEOWN UNIVBR~ITI source finder, and for this purpose i t should be particularly useful PPOVIDGNCB, RBODB ISLAND to biology and chemistry teachers who will want to use a variety of original materials from bacteriology and allied fields to vitalize EB~LLIOMET MEASDREMENTS. ~C W. Swielorlawski,Professor in absentia of Physical Chemistry of the Institute of Technology, their courses. The original journal sources are cited throughout Warsaw; Fellow, Mellon Institute of Industrial Research. the text; the more recent developments are treated extensively. but each major topic is developed historically. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1945. xi In attempting such a comprehensive work, Dr. Gershenfeld 228pp. 646gs. 15.5 X 23.5cm. $4.00. demonstrates the difficulties inherent in integrating the large The work of Professor Swietoslawski on ebulliometry has been amount of empirical information and numerous special systems made available through numerous papers, but especially through that make up the field that is loosely called bacteriology. the 1936 English translation of his book of that title. "EbullioCHARLES E. RENN metric Measurements" is a thoroughgoing revision and marked MASSACIUSBTTS DBPABTMSNT OF PUBLIC HBALTB expansion of the farmer work. All new material since 1936 has CAXBRIDCE. MISBACHVSBTTS been woven in, and an entirely new chapter on critical phenomena added. DE QuiMICA ORGANICA.Enrique V . Zappi, Professor of The hook contains 18 chapters. The 6rst three deal with the TRATADO Organic Chemistry in the Universities of Buenos Aires and L a apparatus and general techniques, and the comparative method 532 pp. Plata. First Edition. Volume 11, Part 11. xiv which includes a thorough discussion of primary standards in 15.5 X 23.5 cm. Volume 11, Part 111, xii 522 pp. 15.5 X ebulliometry. The rest, save one, deal with applications of the 23.5 cm. Published by Libreria y Editorial "El Ateneo." method. Among these may be Listed the calibration of thermomBuenos Aires. Argentina, 1942. eters, measurement of pressure changes, the determination of Parts I1 and I11 complete the second volume, dedicated t o the the degree of purity of liquid substances, the study of azeotropy, the purification and analysis of liquids, the micro and macro "Cyclic Series" of this extensive treatise on organic chemistry. determination of water content, the micro determination of The general characteristics and purpose of the work have already impurity in solids and of the adsorption of vapors by them, the been indicated in THIS JOURNALin the reviews of Part I of study of thermal decomposition, the determination of the molec- Volume11 [19,98 (1942)l and Part I of Volume I [21,468 (1944) 1.
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Volume 11, Part 11, has heen divided intonine chapters dealing with aromatic alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones; acids; phenolic acids; tannins; derivatives of triphenylmethaue; terpenes; polyterpenes and rubber; caratenoids; sterols; hormones and vitamins. Volume 11, Part 111, contains six chapters, the first four dedicated t o heterocyclic compounds and the remaining two t o the alkaloids. The author has not deviated in the two parts here reviewed from the aims indicated in Part I and there attained. Here is presented a large amount of subject matter. The author has riven an advanced and uo-ta-date discussion of the tonics listed above and has succeeded in making a hook which i~hoth informative and didactic. Thc work is a vrrp welcome contribution to the chemical literature of Spmkh-speaking countries, and it will find an appropriate place in many chcmicnl lilmarics. I n the last 55 pages a very complete subjrct index is included. adding to the uselulnrss of the hook. T h e typographicd work is
OF FOODS.AndrevlL. Winton. Sometimestateand THE ANALYSIS Federal Chemist, and Kate Barber Winton, Sometime State and Federal Microscopist. John Wiey and Sans, Inc., New York, 1945. xii 999pp. 208figs. 15.5 X 22cm. $12. For several years food chemists have known that a place was again available for a new and comprehensive book on the analysis of foods. Such a hook should be neither another revision of Leach's colossal book on that subject first published 40 years ago, nor an expansion of the methods of analysis of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists. There have been many improvements and innovations in the methods of food analysis during the past 40 years. The discovery of new basic food adjuncts has necessarily led t o the development of new methods of analysis. New physical methods, such as spectrography, spectrophotometry, chromatography, and polarography have had a distinct bearing unon chanees in and imnrovements of methods of analvsis andallo in the&velopmentbf new methods suitable for roitine work. The difficulties involved in the production of a single volume upon the subject of food analysis appeared t o be almost insurmountable and yet in this book, the Wintons seem t o have achieved the impossible. The book is fresh, it is new, and even if it contains a few obsolete methods of analysis, i t is up t o date. If this volume had been published anonymously the identity of the senior author would necessarily have been discovered by reason of certain oicturesaue lanrmaee .. - here and there. For example, "As fur the decignation nitrugm-free extract, it is not so inappropriate as srientific jokers would have it." hut all attrmptn t o purify crude tibcr in chcmkal analysis have ended in failure because, first, no one knows what pure fiber is, as applied t o food, and, second, because results on a more solid scientific basis would be of little more value thaa what chemists have been blunderingly reporting during a century." A book of this sort is naturally a compilation, but the authors of the compilation are persons having had years of actual experience in f w d analysis, consequently the book contains but few errors. The portion of the work devoted strictly t o campilation, for the ahovc reason, has been reduced t o the irreducible minimum. The preparation of this work required an enormous amount of study and of research into the literatwe of the subject. It is t o be expected that a former president of the A.O.A.C. would draw heavily from the methods of that Asswiation, yet the book contains vastlv more material secured elsewhere. For examole. Part 1 ;.--~-, ~ '*divided into inoreanic constituents ., ~ h a ~ t-,e"Aqh ~ - --~~~~ - orincioal ~~r~~~~ ~" -~ and minor inorganic constituents, covers 78 pages and contains 201 references t o scientific publications. Of these references, only 28 are t o the A.O.A.C. methods or proceedings, and the balance covers references t o 55 other publications. Thechapter on vitamins covers 88 pages, with 249 references t o the literature of this rapidly changing subject. I t contains inter-
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rcting accounts of the chemical structure of these substanrrs and sprctrophorometric, chromatographic, and chemical method< of analysis. Bio-assays are not iucludcd. The chapters on colors are very short, as is also that on preservatives, yet bath are sufficiently informative for normal procedure in food inspection laboratories. The chapter on dairy products is excellent. The Baier and Neumann method for added sucrose in milk could have been omitted since it has been superseded by the far better and mare accurate Rothenfusser test for that purpose. Both tests are fully described. One unfortunate error in authorship occurs on page 758. The author of the method for detecting color in milk was Albert E. Leach. One other error occurs in the title of the table on page 717; it should be "Total Solids" rather than "Solids-notFat." The chapter on Oils and Fats occupies 66 pages and is very complete. Among the omissions may he mentioned the determination of squalene [Jour. A.O.A.C., XXVI, 499 (1943)l as an indication of the per cent of olive oil in mixed oils, and the Fitelson tests for teaseed oil, thelatter being among the officialmethods of the A.O.A.C. (p. 440,1940 edition.) Although this review discusses the book from the standpoint of a food inspection chemist, yet its value as a volume relating t o chemical education should not be neglected. The authors outline a short course in food analysis which could well be used t o teach students in certain chemical and physical processes not generally studied in the usual courses in qualitative and quantitative analysis. Many chapters, such as that on the vitamins, are written almost as much from the educational as from the analytical angle. The historical development of certain methods, such as those formilk solids and for milk fat, are disclosed. The teacher can well use this yolnme for ideas t o be used in lectures, a s well as for laboratory instruction. The young chemist interested in food chemistry should read and digest this book from cover t o cover and thus learn certain phases of food composition and analysis quite foreign t o his routine work and not always present in official methods. We "old timers" can read this book in more or even in less detail and can learn much in our own reiatively small field of work as well as in foreign fields. We can gather inspiration from it and, above all, we can appreciate and marvel a t the colossal amount of work necessarily performed in producing this most excellent volume. The hook should be on the shelves of every food inspection library, in the home of every focd inspection chemist, and in the hands of all chemists engaged in the manufacture of food prod-
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THE AD~AZING PETROLEUM INDUSTRY. V . A . Kaluhevsky, Research and Development Laboratories, Socany-Vacuum Oil Co., Inc. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1943. 234 pp. 12.5 X 18.5 cm. $2.25. This book provides a nontechnical rhumb of the petroleum industry. FUNDAMENTALS OF MACHINES. Charles E. Dull, Head of the Science Department in West Side High School, Newark, New Jersey, and Ira G. Nwlin, Head of the Science Department in the Scarsdale, New York, High School. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, 1943. xvi 547 pp. 368 figs. 13.5 X 19.5 cm. $1.32.
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F~DAMENTALS oa ELECTRICITY.Charles E. Dull, Head of the Science Department in West Side High School, Newark, New Jersey, and Michuel N.Idelson, Head of the Science Department in the Abraham Lincoln School, New York City. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, 1943. xx 456 pp. 370 figs. 13.5 X 19.5 cm. 51.20.
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