328 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The Alkali Industry. By J. R. Partington, M.Sc. : being one of a series 

 of volumes giving a comprehensive survey of the Chemical Industries 

 edited by Samuel Rideal, D.Sc, F.I.C. [Pp. xvi + 304, with 63 figures 

 in the text.] (London : Balliere, Tindall & Cox, 1918. Price js. 6d. net.) 



The rapid development of chemical industry in this country during the war has 

 made the production of up-to-date volumes on the subject a matter of necessity 

 as it is not every one who has either the time or opportunity to consult technical 

 journals and the larger works of reference. 



For many chemists, in particular advanced students and works chemists, the 

 volumes comprised in this series should be of great use. 



Mr. Partington's work on the alkali industry is one of the first of the series to 

 be issued, and appears to represent a good deal of careful work, particularly with 

 regard to the compilation of the lists of literature references at the end of each 

 chapter. The subjects dealt with are the Salt Industry, Sulphuric Acid, Soda, 

 Electrolytic Processes, Chlorine and Derived Products, Nitric Acid, Ammonia 

 and Ammonium Salts, Oxidation of Ammonia, Utilisation and Economy of 

 Sulphuric Acid, Potassium Salts, Iodine and Magnesium. 



One cannot help regarding the book with somewhat mixed feelings as, on the 

 one hand, much care has evidently been devoted to the writing of the volume, 

 which is certainly readable ; but, on the other hand, the mistake appears to have 

 been made of attempting too much : the subjects considered are really too large 

 and numerous to be dealt with in detail within the pages of a moderate-sized book, 

 so that whilst sulphuric acid, for instance, is treated fairly adequately, a vitally 

 important question, such as the supply of potash from other sources than 

 Stassfurt — e.g. blast-furnace gases, etc. — is dismissed in a couple of pages, 

 and electro-chemical processes have to be satisfied with eight pages — hardly a 

 sufficient treatment. 



Again, the information given is not always quite up-to-date ; thus, in dis- 

 cussing the cost of producing synthetic nitric acid, no mention whatever is made 

 of the important paper published by the United States Government, in which, for 

 the first time, really reliable figures of costs are given ; again, no mention is made 

 of the new method which is being adopted in Germany of preparing ammonium 

 sulphate from ammonia and gypsum. 



The book should serve a useful purpose as an introduction to the chemistry of 

 the alkali industry, but one cannot help feeling that rather too much has been 

 undertaken in endeavouring to compress even an outline of the entire alkali 

 industry into one volume, and that it would have been better if the subject had 

 been allowed somewhat fuller treatment. 



F. A. M. 



The Zinc Industry. By Ernest A. Smith, Assoc. R.S.M., Deputy Assay-Master, 

 Sheffield. [Pp. viii + 223, with 4 plates and diagrams in the text.] 

 (London : Longmans, Green & Co., 1918. Price 10s. bd. net.) 



The recent history of the zinc industry is too well known to need emphasis : the 

 story of how, on the outbreak of war, we found ourselves face to face with a 

 famine in the spelter so necessary for munitions, the discovery of the German 

 strangle-hold on the industry — the efforts made both in Australia and in this 

 country to break this monopoly, culminating in the recent Non-Ferrous Metal Bill — 

 are matters that concerns us all, scientists and laymen alike, and a book such as 

 that under review, which deals with the whole subject from the technical, scientific, 



