58 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS The three goups of compounds discussed are the Carbolines (129 pages) by R. A. Abramovitch and Ian D. Spenser 1, 2, $, 4 - Thiatriazoles (22 pages) by K. A. Jensen and C. Pedersen and Pentazoles (11 pages) by Ivar Ugi. G. F. Duffin reviews the Quaternization of Heterocyclic Compounds (56 pages) the Reactions of Heterocyclic Compounds with Carbenes (22 pages) are covered by C. W. Rees and C. E. Smithen Applications of the Hammett equation to Hetero- cyclic Compounds (53 pages) is an excellent and useful review by H. H. Jaffe and I-I. Lloyd Jones finally G. Illuminati presents a comprehensive survey of Nucleophilic Heteroaromatic Substitution (87 pages). Each review is fully supported by references to original papers and the truly international character of this series is reflected in the authors of the reviews in this volume from Great Britain, U.S.A., Canada, Denmark, Italy and Germany. The volume concludes with comprehensive author and subject indexes. Included in this volume are the lists of contents of Volumes 1 and 2 and also Errata to these volumes. This is a first class production and an excellent addition to the growing list of review literature. R.P. REEVES. NON-AQUEOUS SOLVENT SYSTEMS. Editor: T. C. Waddington. Pp. xiv •- 408 -[- Ill. (1965). Academic Press, London and New York. 90s. The book is organized into nine chapters-four dealing with protonic solvents, four with aprotic media and a final one on the solvent properties of molten salts. The editor has wisely recognized that it would not be possible to cover adequately the vast range of non-aqueous solvent systems in one volume he has avoided a superficial discussion of this gamut and chosen instead to treat fairly exhaustively a limited number of solvents that are important per se and which may be held to exhibit type behaviour. Liquid ammonia is worth a book in itself a recent article (1), for instance, only covered the chemistry of inorganic reactions therein. Here those aspects susceptible to quantitative treatment are dealt with. First there is a considerable accumulation of physical, magnetic and spectroscopic properties and thermodynamic and electro- chemical data for liquid ammonia particularly useful is the list of half-wave potentials and the details of metal-ammonia systems. The balance of the chapter is concerned with a relatively comprehensive general survey of reactions in liquid ammonia contrast is drawn with water as well as with less polar solvents. Finally the oxidation potential, ionic solvation, acidmbase reactions, and the interaction of metals in and with ammonia are reviewed. Despite the favourable ionic radii, the aggressive properties of hydrogen fluoride had until recently rendered it unpopular as a protonic solvent. The development of nuclear chemistry, and especially fluoroplastics resistant to HF, changed this dramatically. This chapter - by two workers at the Argonne atomic energy labora- tory - begins appropriately with a discussion of apparatus and equipment adapted for conductimetric and spectroscopic studies, and then extensive physical and spectro- scopic properties are set out. The ionised, and particularly the associated, structures of hydrogen fluoride and the nature of its acidity, are examined in detail. Examples of solutes in HF are taken from metals, interhalogens, proton acceptors (oxonium (1) Fowles, G. W. A. and Nicholls, D. Quart. Rev. 16 19-43 (1962).

BOOK REVIEWS 59 formation), fluoride acceptors (mainly metal fluorides), salts resisting solvolysis and solution without ionisation. There is an interesting final section on biochemical studies. In a separate chapter other tonising hydrogen halides are considered as examples of very acidic solvents of low dielectric constant. Sulphuric acid is the third protonic solvent of high dielectric constant to be examined - and at considerable length (88 pages and over 200 references). Solution mechanisms and conductimetric data are discussed for organic and inorganic acids, bases and non-electrolytes a special section is devoted to sulphates and bisulphates. Physical and spectroscopic properties of sulphuric acid, and its solutions, are tabulated and then detailed consideration is given to a very wide variety of inorganic and organic solutes. The other half of the book is concerned with aprotic solvents. In a chapter on coordinating solvents, the major media for inorganic studies, the "Solvent systems concept" (due to Gutman) is developed as a model of non-aqueous solvent behaviour. Spectroscopic, cryoscopic and conductimetric methods for establishing the existence of coordination are comprehensively reviewed whereafter the energetics of solvent- solute interaction and methods for recognition of the species present are described. Correlation of the solute products with solvent is examined for nine typical organic coordinating media. Liquid sulphur dioxide is taken as a typical aprotic solvent widely used for the study of organic reaction mechanisms. In two further chapters, apportioned to the halogens and interhalogens, and to the (Periodic) Group V halides and oxyhalides, the theory of halide ion dissociation and exchange is critically assessed. The final chapter reviews the chemical and physical properties and con- stitution of highly ionised and conducting molten salts. Examples are given of industrial applications, including the separation and extraction of metals. This is a most readable and authoritative contemporary review of suitably repre- sentative non-aqueous solvents. The editor has cast his net widely to draw on the research experience of his 15 co-authors one should not carill at the occasional introduction thereby of trans-Atlantic terms, such as "ribtonic spectra." The text is well illustrated with figures and the references are adequate for most purposes. This book may warmly be commended - although the price may well deter the less affluent specialists. G.F. PHILLIPS. INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. J. Bassett. Pp. viii + 347 + Ill. (1965). Pergamon Press, London and Oxford. 30s. The stated intention of the book is to provide students with a concise and readable account of modern inorganic chemistry of a standard intermediate between school "Advanced level" and an Honours degree. It is written around the modem concept of the detailed electronic structure of the elements and their vertical, diagonal and horizontal relationships within the Periodic Table. Part I is the essential prologue and the enunciation of basic principles in Chapters I and II is the key. They deal superficially with the simpler features of atomic struc- ture, electronic configuration and the periodic classification. These vital precepts are perhaps a little too condensed and one might well criticize points of detail, e.g. (1) there is a constant lack of cross-references - as when the reader is told on page $1 of the importance of the Principle of Maximum Multiplicity in connection with paramagnetism and colour but has to read on to Chapter XI before finding a three-