BOOK REVIEWS 221 INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY, Part I, by Goeffrey Martin, revised by Edward I. Cooke. 1955. 752 pages Part II, Volumes I and II, "Inorganic Chemistry," by Geoffrey Martin, revised by Wilfred Francis. 1955. Philosophical Library, Inc., New York 16, N.Y. 1091 pages, size 6 X 10 inches, illustrated and indexed. Price. Organic $17.50 Inorganic Volume I, $17.50 and Volume II, $17.50 the three vol- umes $50. Numerous contributors wrote chapters for earlier editions, a practice in use with the present revision. However, though revised, one senses that the effort was not too extensive. Chapters picked at random which are sketchy are on fats and oils, the fatty acids, candles, synthetic perfumes, essen- tial oils, antiseptics, zeolites and one could go on. They are hardly up to date. Coverage is supposed to be inter- national, but is essentially British. It is true that much of the inor- ganic industrial chemistry has not changed much, but Jt has been remarkably polished in its methods. The present texts do not reflect this. Coverage is too broad, in too many cases insufficient. Some chapters have not been revised at all. The work is not equal to the quality of other similar texts. In addition, the price is high, consider- ing that so many of the old type plates could be re-used.--M. G. DENAVAKRE. HAWLEY'S TECHNICAL SPELLER, by G. G. Hawley and A. W. Hawley. Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York 22, N.Y. 1955. 146 pages, size 5 X 6• inches. Price $2.95' No chemist or technical writer need make mistakes in spelling, pronouncing, capitalizing, dividing, hyphenating or deciding whether a word is one or two words any longer. This experiment on the part of the compilers fills a real need. It is not exhaustive in cover- age, but does include most trouble- some words. It is essentially a style manual that also follows the A.C.S. style. Every technical man or/and laboratory needs this "speller." M. G. DENAVARRE. ANTIBIOTICS, by F. •A. Robinson. Pitman Publishing Corp., New York, N. Y. 1953. 132 pages, size 5• X 7• inches, illustrated and indexed. Price $3.00. The author writes with authority due to his wide experience in the field dating to the start of penicil- lin production during the early 1940's. The book covers penicillin (27 pages), streptomycin (20 pages), chloromycetin (10 pages), aureomy- cin and terramycin (16 pages) and five bacterial antibiotics (12 pages). One would like to see more space devoted to a number of the antibiotics covered. No errors were noted. The book is well made and useful as a bal- anced work on the several phases of antibiotic knowledge.--M. G. DENAVARRE. INTRODUCTION TO THE CHEMISTRY OF ENZYMES, by K. J. Laidlet. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York 36, N.Y. 1954. 208 pages, size 6 X 9 inches, illustrated and indexed. Price $5.00. Written for biochemistry majors at the undergraduate level, the book covers a general account of the chemical properties of enzymes in nine chapters. The enzymes are split up into the following main classes: pro-

222 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS teolytic hydrolyric oxidative cata- lase and peroxidase splitting trans- ferring and isomerizing. Each is individually discussed. The inter- relationship is then shown. An interesting and valuable part of the book is the appendix giving a table of all the enzymes, source, molecular weight, inhibitors and activators among other data-- M. G. DENAVARRE. COMPREHENSIVE INORGANIC CHEM- ISTRY, by Thomas D. O'Brien, Howard M. Cyr and the Editors. Volume IV. D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., New York 3, N.Y. 1955. 193 pages, size 6 X 9 inches, illustrated and indexed. Price $5.00. The plan followed in previous volumes, continues in use here. The metals zinc, cadmium and mer- cury are reviewed by Howard M. Cyr and the Editors, while scandium yttrium and the lanthanide series is summarized by Thomas D. O'Brien and the Editors (M. C. Sneed and R. E. Brasted). One learns, for example, that zinc oxide has been known and used since the time of Christ. Errors in spelling on page 35, cumbusion for combustion (line 11) and antiacid for antacid on page 45 (line 8) were found. You will want to complete the series of nine vol- umes by adding this to the first three.--M. G. DEN^VARRE.