REVIEWS. 
Section IIT. (60 pp.), products from low temperature carbonization and their 
chemical nature. This is an important section, and gives an account of treatment 
of coal by reagents, thermal decomposition of low temperature tars, the brown 
coal industry of Germany, chemical constitution of lignite tars and oils from 
shales, &c. 
Section ITV. (16 pp.), refining low temperature crude oils—chemical treat- 
ment, paraffin extracts, and candle manufacture. 
Section V., practical experimental work—the Midland Testing Station. 
Section VI., recovery of bysproducts from coal and the generating of electrical 
energy. 
A process of refining Petroleum Products with liquid SOz is only mentioned 
on page 162. The Eldeaneau process is described in the same author’s book on 
Petroleum Refining. Such methods are only in their infancy, and may prove 
of great value. As a result of the British investigations the Midland Coal 
Products Company has been formed with a fully subscribed capital of £100,000 
to produce oil from bituminous materials, to manufacture domestic and indus- 
trial fuels, and to deal with chemical and other by-products, testing of retorts, 
and other experimental work that may be deemed advisable in order to establish 
the industry on a commercial and a national basis. It is the intention of the 
company to test materials from any part of the world. The general manager 
is the editor of this book. Even the United States of America, with its enormous 
coal and petroleum supplies, does not intend to be behind in the investigations 
of inferior raw materials, and there is a bill in the Senate at the present time 
to appropriate £28,000 at once, and £14,000 for each year after, for experiments 
in the most economic methods for recovering oil from shale. In North Dakota 
there is estimated to be more lignite than in all the rest of the United States 
of America, and sufficient to supply billions of gallons of oil. At present there 
are not any oil shale works in operation in the United States of America, and 
most of the work of the world has been in Scotland, France, and New South 
Wales. Germany has recently successfully developed special methods for 
economically using her brown coals. 
Catalysis in Industrial Chemistry, G. G. Henderson, M.A., D.Se., &e., pp. x. 
+ 202, 1919. Longmans, Green, and Co. A short time ago Catalytic Action was 
a convenient dumping ground under which many chemical reactions which were 
imperfectly understood were classified. It served a similar purpose as the term 
“ physiological diseases” did in the classification of plant diseases. As a result 
of the numerous investigations that are now being made, especially in industrial 
chemistry, we see a great increase in the application of this method of bringing 
about chemical reactions, and the number of patents and the amount of literature 
are increasing enormously. Such works as Sebatier’s (1913) La Catalyse en 
Chimie organique, and Effront’s earlier Hnzymes and their Application (recent 
English edition by Prescott), were classics in their time, and much of the present 
volume has been drawn from the former. There is very little included on 
Enzymes, as this subject is now better known by the works of Green and Bayliss, 
and others. This book will serve a most useful purpose in collecting much of 
the scattered literature, and also the patent specifications, though this could 
he improved by adding the name of the patentee. 
The subject-matter is divided into seven chapters, each of which treats of 
certain related reactions. The first chapter gives a general account of the 
subject of Catalysis and Catalysts, and it is a great pity that the underlying 
principles are not now fully dealt with and the fascinating subject of metallic 
colloids greatly extended, The employment of catalysts enables the technical 
chemist to carry out a large number of manufacturing processes which otherwise 
would be economically impossible. Hence its great application industrially. 
The main chapters (2-6) cover mostly inorganic reactions; nitrogen products; 
hydrogenation; oxidation; and hydration, polymerisation, and condensation. The 
seventh chapter includes a miscellaneous group of organic preparations and 
processes. ‘The actual working processes are not given, but an account in simple 
language of what has already een done in the field. 
In this connexion, however, some of the better known reactions appear to have 
been omitted, e.g., methods for elimination of CS: from Coulgas, and the produc- 
tion of NH from H and N, and its subsequent oxidation to HINO;. <A section 
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