100 



NATURE 



[January 26, 1922 



in contradistinction to the metallurgical, manu- 

 factures carried out in the electric furnace, viz. the 

 making of calcium carbide, the synthesis of 

 nitrogen compounds from the atmosphere, and 

 the ammonia oxidation process. In the section 

 on the synthesis of nitrogen compounds it is 

 stated that the world's production of calcium 

 cyanamide during igi8 was estimated to be more 

 than three-quarters of a million tons, of which 

 nearly one-third of a million tons was made in • 

 Germany. 



In sections lo to i6 and section 18 an account 

 is given of the use of the electric furnace for the 

 production of metals, alloys, and refractories. 

 The importance of these operations is shown by 

 the fact that, in 1918, 100,000 tons of pig-iron 

 were produced in Sweden in the electric furnace, 

 while during the previous year one and a quarter 

 million tons of electric steel ingots and castings 

 were manufactured in the United States. The 

 section dealing with the manufacture of aluminium 

 is disappointingly short in view of the importance 

 of this metal, about 100,000 tons of which are 

 produced annually at the present time solely by 

 means of the electric furnace. 



Attention must be directed to a curious mis- 

 statement in this part of the book. It is said 

 (p. 294) that in the electrical smelting of zinc 

 there is a tendency to the formation of a grey 

 powder " due to rapid cooling, whereby the 

 metal passes direct from the vapour to the solid 

 condition, the boiling-point of the metal being 

 only slightly removed from the melting-point." 

 Actually, the boiling-point of zinc, at atmospheric 

 pressure, is more than 900° C, while its melting- 

 poiflt is 418° C. Further, the use of the word 

 "matte " on p. 168 for the metallic product from 

 an iron-making blast-furnace appears to be un- 

 desirable. 



The remaining sections of the book deal with 

 miscellaneous furnaces, electrolytic processes, 

 and questions of design and power supply. 



The book will doubtless be a very valuable 

 addition to the library of the metallurgist and 

 electrical engineer, and it is to be hoped that a 

 second edition will be called for soon, partly to 

 enable the numerous misprints to be corrected. 

 To select a few at random : p. 37, " Electrical 

 connection . . . are conveniently made " ; p. 87, an 

 X is evidently omitted from the formula; p. 290, 

 the word " downward " appears to be displaced, 

 presumably from the line above; p. 269, " a Bel- 

 gian Compant ..." should doubtless read 

 "a Belgian Company . . . " Furthermore, 

 if the author were to take to heart the dictum 

 reiterated by Rickard in his invaluable book on 

 NO. 2726, VOL. 109] 



"Technical Writing" and remember the reader, 

 the demand for a second edition would give him 

 an opportunity of rewriting some of his sentences, 

 particularly the following: "Currents up to 

 6000 amps, can be lead up to the furnace walls, 

 along two heavy bars for single phase, and three 

 for two or three phase and connected by flexible 

 cables to the electrodes." Or, "According to 

 Prof. J. W. Richards, pig-iron was, in 1920, 

 being produced in Sweden in electric furnaces 

 from charcoal at a cost of 5 dollars per ton less 

 than their own blast-furnace pig-iron." 



J. L. H. 



Chemistry after the War. 



{\) A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry. By Sir 

 Edward Thorpe. Assisted by eminent con- 

 tributors. Vol. I, A-Calcium. Revised and 

 enlarged edition. Pp. x -1-752. (London: 

 Longmans, Green, and Co., 1921.) 605. net. 



(2) A Text-book of Electro-chemistry . By Prof. 

 Max le Blanc. Translated from the fourth en- 

 larged German edition by Dr. Willis R. 

 Whitney and Dr. John W". Brown. Pp. xiv-f 

 338. (New York : The Macmillan Co. • 

 London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1920.) 

 185. net. 



(3) Thermodynamics and Chemistry. By Prof. 

 F. H. MacDougall. Pp. v + 391. (New York: 

 John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman 

 and Hall, Ltd., 1921.) 305. net. 



(i) T T was almost inevitable that, when the dis- 

 X tractions caused by the war had dimin- 

 ished somewhat, there should be a call for a new 

 edition of Thorpe's Dictionary. Whilst pure 

 chemistry may have made comparatively little 

 progress during the war, applied chemistry has 

 received a very great stimulus during the period 

 that has elapsed since the former edition appeared 

 in 1912. The first volume of the new edition has 

 expanded from 614 to 752 pages, or rather more 

 than one-fifth, and whilst it is difficult, without 

 a careful comparison with the old edition, to dis- 

 cover where the expansion has taken place, it is 

 easy to see that the most striking developments 

 are adequately described in the new volume, so far 

 as they are covered by the section from " A " to 

 "calcium." Thus under "acetic acid" and 

 "aldehyde" the manufacture from acetylene is 

 described; under " amatol " there is a forward 

 reference to an article on explosives which 

 will appear in a later volume, and a brief 

 account is given of the new methods used 



