BOOK REVIEW TYPES OF GRAPHIC REPRESEhTATION OF THE PERIODIC SYSTEM OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS Edward G. G. Mazurs, puhlished by author, P.O. Box No. 183, LaGrange, Illinois, 1957. 138 pp. 17 X 24.5 cm. $2.50. In one sense this paper-hound hook rauld he called a. sourcebook on the periodic table, or an annotated bibliogmphy. It certainly is the most oomplete survey of the range of human imagination in representing graphically the Mendeleev periodic law. In organization, this book presents first a historical introduction, followed by a classification of types of tables. The main suhdivisions are: short tables (with 8 columns); medium tahles (with 16 or 18 columns); and long tahles. Among these three divisions are distributed the astonishing varieties of chessboardlike bahles; helix, spiral, and lemniscate types; sig-eag, mirrorimage, and single revolution (one row) tahles; tables with interruptions, tables that are symmetrical shout a vertical line, and tahles that me unsymmetrical; and tables of concentric circles and of parallel lines. I r a s amazed to learn that the very useful valence chart in Deming's books, and reproduced in the wellknown "Merck" chart, n a s first used by Mendeleev in his 1889 Faraday lecture, and that the so-called Thomsen-Bohr table was first proposed by Thomas B. Bayley in 1882. Mazurs has selected from the infinite variations the one that he considers to he "the best representation of the periodic system." I t is the one proposed hy Roy Gardner of New Zealand and by A. Mazzueehelli of Italy independently in 1930, designated as a "right-side electronic configuration series table 'stretched' in vertical direction." A copy printed in seven colors on heavy paper is provided as a separate inclosure with the book. It subdivides the elements into representative, transitional, and rare-earth types; it shows the s, d , d, and f substructures; it calls the representative elements "A" types and the transition elements, "B" types; finally, it eslls the iron, cobalt, nickel groups "transition h" and the samarium through erbium sequence of elements a "transition c" group. All the rare-earth elements are classed as "C" type elements. The copper-zinc groups are in different color and fall into Groups I B and IIB, but are considered to be transition elements. The position of the various groups follows somewhat the energy level scheme of Pauling, except that hydrogen and helium are a t the top instead of a t the bottom. Many will agree with Maeurs that this is indeed a very usofdl tahle. One of the few oversights noted is the important contribution of the late M. A. Catalhn (1950) of the University of Madrid. His tahle is so close to the preferred table of the author that its omission is s. conspicuous lacuna in this com-
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NO. 8, AUGUST, 1958
prrlwnaiw romlr~lnticm. l3rsidee Spxniiih awn.rs, if i avslkl,le i u thr S R S circular no. lG, ".\rornir. Ihrrgy Level*." Volumt I I, published in 1952. There is no way to cheek the completeness of the compilation except by citing such oversights as that mentioned in the previous parsgraph. Probably others will come to light, and the author has notified readers that he will welcome having such oversights called to his attention. His sources have been citations in Chemical Abstracts and in C h m i s e h e s Zmtralblatt. One of the obscure references he has missed, probably because the title does not refor to the periodic tahle, is the "Chemischer Handatlas" by W. Walter Meissner, published by Verlag Georg Westermann in 1931, in which many properties of elements and compounds are presented in graphical form, based on the "medium length" periodic table. The way the printer has introduced wide spaces just hefore the last word or two of each line, to make an even right margin, is distracting. A more serious defect, to my mind, is the way Maeurs has taken historical tables and brought them up-to-date. Instead of reproducing the multitude of tahles just as they were originally printed, he has seen fit to add all the elements discovered up through No. 101. The 1870 tahle of Mendeleev (Figure 24), for example, is complete with inert gases and a full complement of 92 elements. The author has attempted to exemplify the principle behind each table and t o show how the present list of elements would be represented by it. I n spite of my enthusiasm for this hwk, I should have preferred that the historical, crude attempt of the pioneer be preserved intact and not modernized. There are a. few printing errors that one will have to watch for, e.g., Figure 62, which gives a Mendeleev tahle, has the dnte 1869 instead of 1889. The publication of this book will he of particular aid to the editor of THIS JOURNAL. H e can now and forevermore quickly check each weekly batch of "new" modifications of the periodic tahlp that reach his desk and hv farm letter remind the owmec. rjvc uotl>or~, .-If shoultl bc sr&uly rrcowmrndrrl that nnvunr t r l h 4aoold first txkc the who w m r i to clrrivc n new form of ~ h v rroublc to rsaminc the earlicr litrratun about this suhjcrt; in this way many unnecessary repetitions of ideas already given a t an earlier period can he avoided." (Georg Rudorf, 1904, quoted as the "motto" of the present survey.) This book by Masurs is truly a n important contribution to the teaching of chemistry and should he available in every scientific library. ~
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LAURENCE S. FOSTER O n o x m c ~MATER~ALB RESEABOB OPFICB
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