160 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



tions, Nitrogen Products, Hydrogenation, Oxidation, Hydration, Polymerisation, 

 and Condensation, and a last chapter on miscellaneous organic preparations and 

 processes. It is a little difficult to follow the classification adopted, nor does the 

 Table of Catalysts on pp. 194-6 help one much ; in fact, the Table in question, 

 which is merely a list of substances without any indication of the reactions they 

 catalyse or even the page upon which further information may be found, strikes 

 one as being somewhat valueless, nor does the Index of Subjects offer any help 

 in most cases. 



The applications of catalysis are so numerous and varied, and also so scattered, 

 that any attempt to deal with them is to be welcomed, and purely destructive 

 criticism would be as useless as it would be ungrateful. Nevertheless, one cannot 

 but feel that full justice has not been done to this important and fascinating 

 subject, as the main bulk of the work appears to deal chiefly with extracts from 

 the patent literature, whilst discussion of the underlying theories are confined for 

 the most part to the fourteen pages of the introductory chapter. The general 

 treatment of so absorbing a subject is, in fact, rather disappointing. The work 

 may serve as a useful general introduction for senior students to indicate the 

 large extent to which catalysts are used nowadays in chemical industry, but is 

 hardly likely to prove of much assistance to those engaged in chemical industry. 



F. A. M. 



Coal-Tar Dyes and Intermediates. By E. de Barry Barnett, B.Sc. Lond., 

 A. I.C. [Pp. xviii + 213.] (Rideal's " Industrial Chemistry." London : 

 Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 1919. Price 10s. 6d. net.) 



THE chief point that strikes the reader of Mr. de Barry Barnett's work is the 

 relatively large amount of space devoted to the Intermediates ; thus, of 213 pages 

 no fewer than 84 deal with these most important substances. This is quite as it 

 should be, as it is, of course, a well-known fact that about three-quarters of the 

 capital required to build and equip a synthetic dye factory has to be expended 

 upon plant for the manufacture of the essential intermediates, the final stages in 

 the process leading to the actual dyes being usually of a far less involved character. 

 The book is simply and clearly written, and affords a readable introduction to 

 a very complex and important branch of chemistry. On one point only must a 

 word of protest be uttered— namely, the use of the antiquated terms benzole and 

 toluol for the pure chemical substances benzene and toluene. It may be argued 

 that the chemical trade is familiar with these terms, and with such anachronisms 

 as " amido-benzole " for aniline, " nitro-toluol," etc. ; but surely that is no reason 

 why modern scientific nomenclature should be discarded in favour of out-of-date 

 terms and formulae. If chemists are really to be governed by the empirical rules 

 of early Victorian technologists, then let us by all means be thorough, and refer to 

 benzene not as "benzole," but as "bicarburet of hydrogen" (Faraday's original 

 name for the substance), and write aniline as " phogisticated azotic bicarburet of 

 hydrogen " ; then surely no one could object ! 



Whilst we have a carefully thought-out system of chemical nomenclature for 

 organic substances, let us make use of it and have done with "benzole" for 

 benzene and " amido " instead of amino, and so on. Mr. Barnett is not, by the 

 way, guilty of this latter crime. 



However, apart from this flaw there is little fault to find with the work, which 

 should be of considerable service to those who have no desire to study more 

 voluminous works on coal-tar dyes. F. A. Mason. 



