NATURE 



281 



THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1919. 



CATALYTIC CHEMISTRY. 



(1) Catalysis in Industrial Chemistry. By Prof. 

 G. G. Henderson. (Monographs on Industrial 

 Chemistry.) Pp. x + 202. (London: Long- 

 mans, Green, and Co., 1919.) Price 95. net. 



{2) Catalytic Hydrogenation and Reduction. By 

 Dr. E. B. Maxted. (Text-books of Chemical 

 Research and Engineering.) Pp. viii + 104. 

 (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1919.) Price 

 45. 6d. net. 



T)OOKS on analysis are legion. The ionic 

 -L' theory has helped the chemist to appreciate 

 the anion and cation in electrolysis, but the term 

 catalysis has only recently been deemed worthy of 

 appearing on the title-page of a chemical text- 

 'book. 



In the " Dictionary of Applied Chemistry," 1916 

 edition, issued by the same firm of publishers as 

 that of Prof. Henderson's "Catalysis in Industrial 

 Chemistry," there is no separate article on cata- 

 lysis, the reader being referred to "Chemical 

 Affinity" for the definition, whilst Dr. Maxted's 

 "Catalytic Hydrogenation and Reduction" as a 

 special branch of the wider subject received only 

 indirect mention. 



Both books are for the industrial reader, and 

 show the rapid development of applied science 

 without attempting to trace the growth of the 

 fundamental idea from the early conceptions of 

 Davy and Faraday, although Prof. Henderson has 

 unearthed an early patent of Phillips in 1831 for 

 the production of sulphuric anhydride from sulphur 

 dioxide and oxygen through the catalytic action 

 of platinum, which may be regarded as the pre- 

 cursor of the modern contact process as developed 

 at Freiberg and by Squire and Messel in London. 

 The Dobereiner lamp of 1822 was an early indus- 

 trial application of a metallic catalyst to hydrogen 

 oxidation, and the stability of hydrogen peroxide in 

 presence of acids, as shown by Thenard in 1818, is 

 still a commercial illustration of negative catalysis 

 which should be added to Prof. Henderson's 

 review. 



If a catalyst is simply an unalterable substance 

 which modifies the velocity of the reaction, all 

 solvents must be looked at catalytically, as pointed 

 out by Ostwald, and Prof. Henderson gives us his 

 first catalyst water both in heterogeneous solution, 

 as in the inversion of cane-sugar, and in a homo- 

 geneous gaseous system, as shown by Dixon in 

 sparking dry carbon monoxide and oxygen. The 

 Avork of Sabatier and his pupils on the hydrogena- 

 tion and reduction of organic compounds has 

 activated within the last decade an industrial 

 development of those catalytic processes which 

 Involve the use of free hvdrogen, so that at the 

 present time they are yielding results of consider- 

 able commercial value which are not confined to 

 the soap industries. Although these are suffi- 

 ciently summarised in two of Prof. Henderson's 

 •chapters, they are much more interestingly 

 NO. 2589, VOL. 103] 



elaborated in Dr. Maxted's little book of 104 

 pages. 



Wielands' interesting work with oxygen-free 

 palladium in order to differentiate between cata- 

 lytic oxidation and dehydrogenation, as, for 

 example, in the conversion of hydroquinone into 

 quinone, is not referred to by Prof. Henderson, al- 

 though its bearing on the function of water as a 

 catalyst in carbon monoxide oxidation is im- 

 portant, and, as pointed out bv Dr. Maxted, 

 these results throw quite a new light on the 

 necessity for, and rdle of, water in oxidation 

 reactions generally. 



The extended use of these hydrogenation pro- 

 cesses has necessitated a consideration of the 

 methods for manufacturing a suitable hydrogen 

 free from poisons to benefit the equally important 

 catalytic synthetic ammonia and nitric acid 

 processes essential for the future explosive and 

 fertiliser industries. It is remarkable that here, 

 again, the interaction of water-gas and steam in 

 presence of the right catalyst points the way to 

 economic hydrogen production for these big cata- 

 lytic industrial operations, so that, in the words of 

 Berzelius, " it is proved that several simple and 

 compound bodies, soluble and insoluble, have the 

 property of exercising on other bodies an action 

 very different from chemical affinity. I will call 

 this force the catalytic force, and catalysis the de- 

 composition of bodies by this force in the same 

 way that one calls by the name analysis the 

 decomposition of bodies by chemical affinity." 



The two books are welcome additions to the 

 literature of the subject. S. Rideal. 



CALIFORNIAN GAME BIRDS. 

 The Game Birds of California. Contribution from 

 the University of California Museum of \"erte- 

 brate Zoology. By Joseph Grinnell, H. C. 

 Bryant, and T. I. Storer. (Semicentennial 

 Publications of the University of California.) 

 Pp. x + 642-Fi6 coloured plates. (Berkeley: 

 University of California Press, 1918.) Price 

 6 dollars net. 

 "T^HE game birds of all parts of North .\merica 

 ■*■ are of special interest to residents on the 

 other side of the Atlantic, since they, unlike so many 

 of the Passerine forms of the country, are closely 

 akin to those of Europe. Moreover, from our 

 earliest years we have been attracted by a large 

 number of the names. The Pilgrim Fathers used 

 many picturesque expressions, and their descend- 

 ants continue to do so. The " Heath Hen of 

 Martha's Vineyard " makes us want to know who 

 Martha was and all about her vineyard, while 

 the " Prairie Chicken of the Foothills of the 

 Rockies " might be the title of the villain of a 

 melodrama. Thus we take up a book on Cali- 

 fornian game birds with a predisposition in its 

 favour. 



In the present case the predisposition is 

 thoroughly justified, but the work covers far 

 more than what are most commonlv known as 



