Book reviews OIL, DETERGENTS AND MAINTENANCE SPECIALTIES. Vol. 1. B. Levitt. Pp. vii q- 280 q- Ill. (1967). Chemical Publishing Co., New York. $13.75. The emphasis of this book is in the basic practical application of knowledge acquired by the author over many years of experience in the manufacture of oils, soaps and detergents. The book in many ways resembles E. T. B•ebb's classic work Soaps and Glycerine Manufacture in which the same subjects are presented in a similar lucid manner devoid of excessive theoretical and technical discussion. It is very easy in this type of informative writing to become sidetracked by the hundreds of excellent scientific specialist papers which can only distract without satisfying the reader's interest in the main issues involved. The author has fortunately avoided these pitfalls, and each chapter is dealt with in a masterly and facile style, which can readily be followed by semi-technically trained personnel. The book is divided into nine chapters comprising the Introduction, Animal Fats and Oils, Vegetable Fats and Oils, Fatty Acids, Fatty Alcohols, Glycerol, Surfactants and Surface Activity, Production of Fats and Oils, Soap Manufacture, Synthetic Detergents, and finally Analysis of Oils and Detergents. The second chapter deals concisely with the rendering of animal fats for soap making and the refining of fish oils such as herring, menhadden, salmon, pilchard and sardine oils for use in paint, linoleum and printing ink industries. The thera- peutic values of the fish liver oils, followed by butter, margarine, Janolin and its derivatives, sperm oil and spermaceti and their applications are fully discussed. The third chapter deals in like manner with about twenty of the better known vegetable oils and fats finalised in a chemical and physical constants table of 76 oils and fats each with their sources of origin. Fatty acids, alcohols, and glycerol, their synthesis, characteristics and uses, are treated effectively in chapter four, followed by surfactants and surface activity and the importance of biodegradability of detergents in chapter five. The production of fats and oils solvent extraction, continuous centrifugal refining, Solexol, Furfural, and Emersol processes, followed by a description of hydrogenation, sulphonation, the fat splitting processes and the production of glycerol, concludes an interesting and factual sixth chapter. Perhaps the most important chapters in the books are the 7th and 8th which deal fully with the various aspects of soap and detergent manufacture which hold a mass of facts, figures and formulations most useful to the technician or chemist working in these fields. L. CHALMERS. 493

494 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS AEROSOL SCIENCE. Editor: C. N. Davies. Pp. xviii q- 468 q- Ill. (1967). Academic Press, London, New York. 115s. $10.50. It must be stated at the outset that the average cosmetic chemist will not find in this book an easy, intelligible introduction to the science of aerosols that will help him to bridge the gap between the technology and the fundamental science. "Aerosol Science" makes few concessions to a popular or even technologically based approach. It is a thorough, well edited account of the present state of this branch of colloid science. The book was almost devoid of direct reference to the more familiar mani- festations and applications of the aerosol state, for example, fogs, smokes and atom- izers were not discussed in practical detail. Nevertheless, "Aerosol Science" is a very able compilation of up-to-date infor- mation, written by the leading practitioners of this subject. Physicists, colloid chemists and chemical engineers can derive considerable enlightenment from a study of the various chapters of this work. The first chapter of this book, dealing with the genera- tion of aerosols is worthy of study of those practising a variety of scientific and technical disciplines. Chapters V and VI, which deal in detail with the transport influences on aerosol particles, namely thermophoresis, diffusiophoresis and photo- phoresis will appeal to colloid chemists. An excellent chapter by R. G. Doorman on the filtration of aerosol particles would repay study by chemical engineers and others concerned in the processing and classification of powders. Chapter IX, on the adhesion to surfaces of particles is of general interest, if only because of the descriptions of elegant techniques [or the measurement of this property. These techniques, inciden- tally, owe much to Tabor and his school at Cambridge. To conclude, many industries which are more science-based than our own could derive immediate value from "Aerosol Science". Is it too much to hope that in the near future we may find available to us "An Introduction to Aerosol Science" in whose pages aerosol science and aerosol technology would be more strongly integrated? F. J. MOTTRAM. MODERN PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. J. L. Kice and E. N. Marvelt. Pp. ix q- 449 q- Ill. (1966). Collier- MacMillan, London. 70s. This claims to be the "first brief text" presenting a flexible mechanistic treat- ment of modern organic chemistry. Brevity it certainly' has: the authors cast a wide meshed net over a large proportion of the high seas of natural and synthetic organic substances, sufficiently superficially to require only 420 large-type pages there is also one final chapter encompassing the diagnostic importance of the spectral properties of molecules. An unusual feature of the presentation is the liberal use of brown type to emphasize key substituents or direct attention to particular reacting species or the nature of rearrangements. One must also praise the clarity of the structural formulae, wherein atoms other than carbon and hydrogen are set in heavy black type against the finely drawn hexagons, etc. There is also use of a paler brown background to set off, some- what luridly, important tables or reaction schemes. Each chapter carries its own crop of graded problems although the answers are left to the class tutor..