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NEW BOOKS Chemistry in Modern Life. By Svante Arrhenius. Translated by C. S . Leonard. 2,2 x 16 cm; p p . xvif286. New York: D. V a n Nostrand Company, 1926. Price: $9.00. I n the preface the author says: “The bitter experience given us by the World War, and by the after years of exigency, demonstrated with hard-fisted emphasis the necessity for chemical indust’ry. So we see today how the nations are trying to develop this branch of science for the best possible improvement of their situation. The most practical way to repair the heavy losses caused by the war lies in the application of chemistry.” This is a popular book on chemistry and the chapters are entitled: ancient ideas about the constitution of matter; the ground-work of scientific chemistry; fire, oxidation, and reduction; tools and metals; the cultural value of silica; the chemistry of t,he eart,hs crust; ores and fossil fuels; the chemistry of water and air; sources of energy, electricity and chemistry the course of a chemical process; dyes, perfumes, m d drugs; cellulose and rubber; chemistry and the bread question; housekeeping with the treasures of nature. “It should be noted that Lavoisier had numerous predecessors who came near t o a correct conception about combustion. We have mentioned the genius, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). This man, who accomplished marvellous work in all the arts and sciences of his time, also suggested a theoretical explanation of the problem of combustion. According to Leonardo air was consumed in the process of burning, and animals could not live in an air which, after bodies had been burned therein no longer could support combustion. Thus Leonardo discovered the fact that air consisted of two parts, of which one, now called oxygen, could support combustion and was necessary for the respiration of animals, while the other, now called nitrogen lacked these properties,” p. 24. “A very remarkable statement, has been found by Klaproth in a Chinese manuscript of the eighth century. The author, Mao Khoa, reported therein that air was composed of two constituents, yin and yang. Yin could be removed from the air by t.he use of divers metals, or by sulphur, or carbon;-it must therefore have been oxygen. Yin could also be prepared from a certain mineral, the name of which is given. Klaproth presumes that this word meant saltpeter, but is not sure cf this. “The Byzantines very probably knew of gunpowder in the seventh century, the Chinese surely in the tenth century. Saltpeter is a constituent of this. From China the use of gunpowder passed to Persia and Arabia, where saltpeter was called the Chinese salt, or Chinese snow. The Arabs probably taught the Europeans the art of handling gunpowder,” p. 2 j. “Flint lends itself to use for tools because of the sharpness of its edges. Flint is an amorphous, which is t.0 say a noncrystalline, substance. dmorphous substances, of which glass is best known, are characterized by a shell-like, or scale-like, mode of fracture, and as a result of this the edges formed by the fracture are very sharp. That is why one can so easily cut oneself on bits of broken glass, while pieces of the coarsely crystalline rocks, such as granite, are not a t all dangerous when broken. I n primitive times men sometimes used a true glass, volcanic in origin, called obsidian, for making edged-tools, and because of the traditional age of such tools, the Jews, today, use knives of obsidian for religious purposes. Flint also possesses the necessary hardness for use as a tool. It is very widespread, too, in its occurrence in bhalk-formations all over t,he world,” p. 6s. “The making of pottery vessels ha.s been of the greatest importance in the development of a sense of beauty in man, for undoubtedly clay objects were an incentive t o the use of ornamentation. It was probably noted that the impressions from the fingers that resulted from working the clay were found to remain after firing and to be permanent. Next a pleasure was found in designing an ornament by applying such finger marks in a regular arrangement, see Fig. 15. Later it was preferred to make the marks needed for ornamentation of the clay by the use of pointed objects. A fine example of what could be made even in the stone age by means of this simple t,echnique may be seen in Fig. 16, which is a picture, 1/6 size, of a clay urn found on the island of Moen in Denmark,” p. 86. “There is no question but that the art of fabricating glass arose in Egypt about 5000 years ago. Articles of glass were first brought into Greece by the mercantile and sea-going

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peoples such as t,he Phoenicians, who, like the Assyrians, early learned how to work glass. The Greeks are not known to have practiced the art before the days of our calendar. Thus the Egyptians and the Phoenicians were looked upon a t that time as the great masters of glass technique, and Alexandria was world-renowned for the remarkable glass articles sold in its markets. ‘[In the Roman state glass manufacture was first taken up on a large scale in the days of the Caesars, and the products were marketed even in t,he far East. I n China the art of glass manufacture was first learned about the middle of the fifth century A. D. In spite of the high reputation held by Roman glass it was rather highly colored, having a green or yellow tint, like the simplest kinds of glass of today, and moreover it. was full of small blowholes and nodules. On this account it was generally colored deeply or made opaque by the addition of chemicals and was used mainly for decorative purposes, and for jewelry, such as the cameo, and also for mosaics, etc. Only in very isolated cases was it used for windows; such use may be seen in the excavations a t Pompeii. I n the first century A. D. glass began to be ufied t,o a great,er and greater extent, for church-windows, but this glass was not clear, and consisted of small colored bits, which transmitted only a mystic half-light. The manfacture of glass next passed over to Constantinople and the Mohammedan Orient. The art returned to Europe during the Middle Ages. Venice became its chief center. When the Renaissance came and progress began again, glass factories, like all else, were influenced hy the general desire to find artistic expression and the glass-industry of Venice reached a very high point in the 16th and 17th centuries. From Italy the art spread to France, which country was destined next t o take the leading place in this branch of human culture. Even in Germany, and especially in Bohemia a t the same period a great glass industry began to develop. I n the last half-century Germany has stood a t the top in this field. More and more all cultural lands have attained high proficiency in the art,” p. 96. “From lime-glass which is long heated to a high temperature there separates long crystals of pseudo-wollastonite (calcium silicate). As a result the glass acquires a porcelain-like appearance. Such glass is named after R6aumur who first, noted the property. Sttempts have been made t o use this glass as porcelain but it is found to be very brittle so that it has little use. Zinc oxide can be dissolved in glass to such an amount that, on cooling, it cryst~allizesout in long needles. These can be colored a green or blue color by,adding nickel or cobalt, which enter into the zinc silicate crystals. This fact is made use of for the preparation of artistic glazes on porcelain. Aventurine glass is characterized by the presence of small red copper crystals embedded in the glass. I t results from the presence in the glass of both copper silicate and ferrous oxide. The latter during a slow cooling of the glass is oxidized at t,he expense of the copper oxide out of the silicate, so that copper [?I precipita.tes in crystalline fcrm,” p. 105. Arrhenius seems t o be rather impressed by the work of Ross, p. I I O . “The chemist, William Ross, at the University of m7ashington in Seattle, has investigated a process which appears to be most promising. He first tried to get potash from potash felspar by heating the rock with a steam a t 500” C. and under the enormous pressure of 1450atmospheres. This experiment was unsuccessful. Sext he heated the felspar wit,h lime in water at 300” under about 90 atmospheres of steam pressure. He then found t,hat a large part of the potash had been displaced by the lime, and had dissolved in the water. When the lime was made double the amount of the felspar, practically all the potash was freed. He now added still more lime so that the mass remaining after leaching out the potash would have about the same composition as the mixture from which Portland cement is made. (Felspar is about 2570 low in alumina in comparison with the silica content, but this seems to make little difference in the value of the product). He investigated the potash yield a t different temperatures. I t was found that at 20cc’ and 16 atmospheres pressure, 93% of t,he potash could be separated. At higher temperatures higher yields were possible, but it was convenient and more practical t o work a t the low temperature of 200’. So it should be comparatively simple to design an economically advanOageous process along these lines, first removing the potash, then making cement from the remaining mass.”

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“Many rocks such as granites are buried under the surface of the earth and cannot therefore have given off their gas-content to the air. The gases are still locked up in the stone. If the stone is crushed and pulverized and the powder heated, the gases pass out. So much gas is occasionally present that the stone explodes when it is struck by a hammer. This is true of the red quartz from Branchville, Conn. Similarly granite from Monson, Mass., is let stand some time after quarrying, and little particles of stone often fly at high velocity from its surface as the gas pressure is relieved. The gas content of the Branchville rock is made up of 98% carbon dioxide, the rest nitrogen with a trace of other gases. Granites and gneiss give off gas amounting to 2.j to 7 times and even up to 18 times their own volume, measured at 18” C. and atmospheric pressure. These gases are mainly hydrogen and carbon dioxide with a little methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulphide. Water is not generally present, though a t times it may be the chief constituent. Gautier calculated that a cubic centimeter of a granite which he investigated gave off 2 0 liters of gases when heated t o 1000’ C., and 80 liters of water measured at 1000’ and atmospheric pressure. Very often the vapors from volcanoes attack rock masses lying nearby, setting free carbon dioxide from the limestone, and hydrogen sulphide from sulphur compounds,” p. 113. “The flakes of lime that are precipitated by or&misms contain a little magnesium, and on the average this amount is one per cent. Many algae remove even more magnesium carbonate, in some cases up to thirteen per cent (according to Hogbom). From such material magnesia-limestones are formed. Hogbom has further shown that when such rock is weathered by carbonated water, lime dissolves out faster than does magnesium and so the residue approaches nearer and nearer in composition to dolomite, hIgCa(COa)n. Also water containing magnesium salts in solution can wash calcium carbonate out cf limestones and replace it with magnesium carbonate. Dolomite, and dolomite limestones are widely distributed rock material. “These rocks often contain iron, partly due to the action of plants, which may cause iron carbonate to be precipitated along with the lime and magnesia. Iron carbonate can replace calcium carbonate just as can the magnesium salt when solutions containing iron come into contact with limestones. I n this way large areas of iron-spar or siderite (iron carbonate) are formed. In the presence of water containing oxygen this mineral easily changes to limcnite (iron hydrate) and this, by the action of heat and pressure, to hematite, FezOa, or to magnetite, Fea04. The remarkable, huge, iron deposits around Lake Superior are believed to have been formed in this way from original deposits of siderite,” p. 1 2 2 . “If a radium preparation is preserved in a glass vessel this glass becomes colored a dark violet color. When the glass is heated the color disappears. This coloration results from the action of the radiation from the radium,and it develops more rapidly the more rays the preparation sends out. It has been known for a long time that many minerals such as tourmaline and mica display under the microscope dark spots in their layers, which are called ‘pleochroic halos,’ (places which under polarized light show various colors). Joly in 1907 discovered that these dark places mere due to radiations from little, enclosed kernels of radioactive material, containing uranium. From measurements of the size and the uranium content as well as by intensity of the color of these spots, it was determined that these preparations which came from rock of the Devonian period had an age of about 400 million years,’’ p. 124. “Concern about our raw materials casts its dark shadcw over mankind. Those states which lack throw lustful glances at their neighbors, which happen to have more than they use. Still more tempting is the desire for gain from lands on the other side of the seas, inhabited by uncivilized natives, with interest unawakened to guardianship. Historical research of the future will demonstrate how much desire for raw materials was a cause of the recent great misfortune whose effects mankind, or better, the so-called civilized nations, are still undergoing. It is clear that some day we must come to forbid national egotism, equally with the profit-seeking of industries, from seeking a solution of the problem of the proper use of raw materials. Mankind must finally come to the viewpoint that in every possible way it will spare these raw materials for the future and that it will make use in-

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stead of t,he great power for work poured out by the sun above us in apparently undiminishing amount; or else will use the sun indirectly by employing the energy which is coIlected together in the form of water-flow, and in the green plants; for these are sources which can renew themselves,” p. 143. “Calcium carbonate precipitates from sea water part,ly as crystalline limestone, as one can see at the mouth of the Rhone river, or along the Florida coast, but by far the greater part is removed by organisms-corals, mollusks and pteropods. Their limy-shells and skeletons contain crystalline calcium carbonate. I t is calculated that yearly 2300 million tons of chemical substances are precipitated in the ocean, of which the largest portion, about 1300 million tons consists of calcium carbonate, while of the remaining Iooo million about one-third is silica, which is removed by organisms. and the rest consists of about 280 million t.ons of magnesium carbonate, 60 million tons of potash, 7j million tons of iron oxide and various other related oxides, and a residue of sulphat.e, which for the most part becomes reduced to metallic sulphides. The carbon dioxide content of sea water varies with the depth. At the surface it amounts to about 43 mg. per liter. Below the surface it decreases rapidly so that a t jo meters depth (150 ft.) only 34 mg. are present per liter. At, the bottom of the great deeps of the sea it, again has increased to nearly 47 mg. per liter. One result of this increase in carbon dioxide concentration wit’h great depth is that the flakes and shells of lime which are continually being produced by the organic life in the upper layers are generally dissolved on sinking into the lower layers of high carbonate concentration. At a depth of over 3000 meters (9000 ft.) no pteropod shells are to be found, while the more strdngly built shells of glabigerina are &ill present jooo meters below the surface. On the ocean bottom less and less lime is t o be found the greater the depth. At 900 meters the calcium content of the bottom mud is not less than 86%, a t 4000 meters it is only 47r0, at 6000 met’ers it is scarcely one percent, and in yet deeper regions there lies a red mud, colored by iron oxide,” p, 14j. “In more recent years an experimental station with five mirrors of giant dimensions (60 by 4 meters) has been worked near Cairo, Egypt, with practical results. The builder was an American engineer named Shuman. The steam-pan was horizontal, as was the mirror axis. I t mas automatically turned so that the mirrors received the greatest possible radiation at all times of day. This plant was studied in 1913 by an authority, Ackermann. He found that its effectiveness was 60 h. p. per acre of earth-surface, over which the mirrors were mount,ed. The mirrors, in order not t o hide one another in the morning and afternoon, must have space three times greater than their own actual open surface. Ackermann believed that the efficiency of these engines could easily be raised to 50%. I n this event, and with the cost of construction and operation counted in, a horse power hour would cost about twenty cents and if the energy was changed to electric power this, in Cairo, should cost about. 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour. This is a very moderate price. In Stockholm just before the war the price of lighting current was eight cents and power current. four cent’s,” p. 170. “Great tracts of land in the Mcditerranean countries, particularly areas near Avignon in France, which for many years previously had made great profit out of the growing of madder root, were forced by the competition of the synthetic product [alizarine] to give up this crop and had to be converted to the growing of other crops, naturally with great economic loss. However, seen from a more general point of view than that of the Svignon madder growers this must be looked upon as a benefit, for a fruitful district was thus returned to the ranks of bread-producing regions. “Yet greater economic interests were ruined by the successful artificial production of indigo. This most important of all the dyestuffs has been in use from the grey dawn of antiquity by the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks. Indigo can be prepared from many different plaiits of which the most important is Indigofera tinctoria, a plant which originated in the East Indies but today is spread by cultivation into many parts of the tropics, in Asia, Africa and South Smerica. Another indigo plant, Isates tinctoria, the woad, is much hardier and is to be found growing in Europe as far north as Sweden. It was formerly, especially around the year 1300, an object of intensive cultivation in France and

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Germany, but as indigo began to be imported from the East Indies it,s European cult,ivation died out. Probably ancient man in Europe used the woad for a blue dye from very early times. The Fictish people of Korth Britain, when found by the Romans, were in the babit of painting their bodies for battle with woad. Indigo production in India in the past century was one of the most important sources of revenue of that country (and in consequence, of England). In 1897 the total value of natural indigo production mas 23,000,000 dollars, and the amount was 6 million kilos of pure indigo, of whichgo7, camefromBritish India,” p. 219. “The results [of the experiments on synthetic indigo] were most satisfying to the persevering workers. The importation of indigc into Germany sank from a value of fifty million dollars in 1896 to a value of eighty thousand dollars in 1911, while the export from that c o u n t q for the same period mounted from thirteen to one hundred million dollars in spite of a drop in price to less than one-fifth. At, the same time the value of the export of indigo from British India sank from seventeen t o one million dollars. At one time the surface given over to the growing of indigo plant in India was not less than 1,480,000 acres,” p.

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There are a few slips. Arrhenius still believes in the formation of a definite compound with caustic soda, p. 242, when cotton is mercerized. The translator says, p. 62, that bronze is made by adding a little copper to tin instead of the other way round. The proof reading is not very good and the translator shows a true Gallic freedom as to the spelling of proper names. Also, in English we do not speak of the beautiful blue Donau. The book is a very interesting one and Arrhenius preaches enthusiast,ically the doctrines of conservation. Wilder D. Bancroft Farbkunde. By Wilhelm Ostwnld. 22 x 16 cna; p p . xai+SlS. Leipzig: ,S’, Hirzel, 1923. The hook is divided into t v o parts: the general theory of color; and applications of the theory of color. In the first part the chapters are entit’led: history of the theory of color; light; the process of seeing; the dull colors; the color circles; the symmetrical color triangle; the color fields; the doctrine of the color sector. Under applications we find three subdivisions: measurement of colors, with chapters entitled measurement of the dull colors, measurement of the color tint, measurement of the white and black content of the bright colors, and indirect measurements; physical-chemical relations, with chapters entitled the mixture of colors, physical chemistry of pigments and dyes, and the media for colors; psychophysical relations, with chapters entit,led the physiology of the eye, color as a means of representation, and the harmony of colors. Ostwald recognizes eight main colore : yellow, orange, red, violet, ultramarine blue, ice blue, sea green, and leaf green. He omits the orthodox indigo which only very few people see and splits blue and green into two colors each. Each one of these main colors he divides into three, red into vermilion; carmine, and the purple of the dark red roses; and ultramarine blue into the blues of ammoniacal copper solution, of ultramarine, and of the blue of the sky, p. 91. Starting with 3-570 solutions of quinoline yellow, eosine, rose Bengale, wool blue, and Neptune blue, one can duplicate almost any pure color by dipping pieces of 4 white filter paper either into these solutions or into euitable mixtures of them, p. 76. Ostwald constructs triangular diagrams with white, black, and any pure color in the three corners, p. 94. He calls attention to the great beauty of the clear colors with a good deal of black in them and claims that the beauty of the old church glass is due either to dust which blackens them or to the presence of magnetite in them to darken them. While this is undoubtedly true to a great extent, etriae and irregularities in thickness add also to the beauty of the old glass as was shown conclusively by LaFarge. Ostwald lays great stress on the theoretical significance of what he calls the “Farbenhalb” or color sector, p. 117. The best yellow is not one which transmits only the spectrum yellow; but one which trammite all the light from red to’sea-green so that one gets the Pynthetic yellow from red and green superposed on the spectrum yellow. In other words the important color sector is the one which includes the colors on either side which make the color under discussion when combined.

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The color sectors of the warm colors, leaf-green, yellow, orange (which Ostwald calls Kress) and red contain a good deal of white, which one does not notice as such, while the color sectors of the cool colors, violet to sea-green contain a good deal of black. In fact it is the presence of white in the saturated colors of one class and of black in the saturated colors of the other class which gives rise to the terms warm and cool. Ostwald points out, p. 126, that when one mixes two complementary colors by means of a rotating disc, the resulting white is spread over twice the surface and is therefore actually gray. If colored lights are mixed, one can get either white or gray, according to the background. On p. 186 Ostaald shows that the colors from orange to blue all move towards the green on dilution while red moves towards the violet. Ostwald believes strongly in five-color printing as against three-color printing, p. 192, if one wishes to reproduce colors satisfactorily. On p. 202 Ostwald states that white lead is a mixture of lead carbonate and lead hydroxide, and that the two can be distinguished under the microscope. This is of course a mistake. White lead is basic lead carbonate. The commercial pigment may contain an excess of lead carbonate or of lead hydroxide; but that is not what Ostwald said. The reviewer also finds it impoesible to accept Ostwald’s remarks on luster, p. 36. “Most actual surfaces lie between the two rxtremes of complete specular reflection and completely matte surfaces. If the specular reflection is recognizable, one calls the surface lustrous, the luster increasing with the amount of specular reflection. Fatty luster, vitreous luster, adamantine luster, and metallic luster are arranged in the order of increasing specular reflection.” Warm glazing colors remain transparent even in thick layers while the black in cold glazing colors makes thrm look black in thick layers, p. 207. Ostwald proposes to take as the standard of reduction with white the amount of zinc oxide which must be added to one gram of a pigment to give an optical white content of fifty percent. This will be 0-30 with the mineral pigments and may run over 1000with the dyes, p. 212. When a pigment is ground, there is a grain size for which the color is most intense, because too much white is reflected when the pigment surface is increased too much. I t follows from this that the pigments which can stand the most reduction with white can stand the h e s t grinding. For cobalt glass the most effective grain size is 0.5-1.0 mm. Ostwald is an authority on the theory of colors; but he slips up when he talks about dyeing, p. 247. Basic and acid dyes are not colloidal and they don’t dye cotton direct. Substantive dyes do dye cotton direct and are in colloidal solution. KO one would guess from what Ostwald says that sodium sulphate acts in three ways with the three classes of dyes: basic, acid, and substantive. There is anothrr unfortunate statement on p. xvi. “The blue color of the sky is due to physical and not to special chemical causes. All earthly objects on the other hand shorn chemical colors.” Ostwald has forgotten or never known about the blue feathers of birds, the moonstones, the iridescent feathers, the temper colors on steel, etc. Ostwald lays down the general rule, p. 271, that in all fields of art law iF harmony. “In a book entitled “The Harmony of Forms,” which appeared in 1922, I tried out the experi’ment thoroughly. The classification was found to cover all the previous laws of ornamentation and of beautiful forms as they have been worked out by artkts during thousands of yrars and it also enabled the prediction of an infinite number of beautiful forms which the creative phantasy of all the people in all times had not originated, and there was not a single ugly one among them,” p. 273, It is often said by dressmakers and decorators that white and black harm no colors. Otsmald taken issue with this, p. 282. He claims that white goes well only with the bright clear colors. One can combine white with pink or sky blue, with vermilion or ultramarine blue; but one cannot combine white with bottle green, a blackish blue, or a yellow containing black. One corollary is perhaps subject to the decrees of fashion. “Another case is that children and very young girls can wear white while it is not suitable as the chief color for older women. The reason for this is that from about twenty-five years on the skin becomes darker due to increase of coloring matter in the surface cells, and this increasing amount

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of black makes the complexion appear muddy when contrasted with white, whereas colors containing more black make the skin appear clearer.” Conversely, black goes well only with colors which are poor in white. Since red is the one of the bright colors which can most easily be obtained in a deep shade with a low white content this accounts for the fondness people have for combining black and red. Wilder D. Bancroft

A System of Physical Chemistry. Vol. I I . Thermodynamics.Fourth edztion. B ~ TY. J C. McC. Lewis. 12 X 16 em; pp. viii+@Q. New Yorlc and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925. Price: $475; 15 shillings. Whilst all chemists who are not faddists agree that a knowledge of Thermodynamics is useful and even necessary in a proper understanding of the modern science, they will also admit that perhaps no other branch of the subject offers such difficulties to the average student. It may not be impossible that these difficulties are introduced by a particular treatment of the subject. By avoiding terse and clear-cut statements, adopting a discursive style, interpolating explanatory paragraphs to break up an argument, and returning to a subject again and again after having given the impression that it has been brought to a conclusion, modern thermodynamics might conceivably be robbed of its main terror, that of being a science capable of leading, by strictly logical development from two general laws of experience to a great number of special results without the aid of loose analogical or ingenious but shaky hypotheses. There is little doubt that a logical way of treating the subject is distasteful to the average student of chemistry and the author of a successful textbook will, in the interests of popularity, be careful to avoid it. Professor Lewis’s book is too well known to need description. I n its fourth edition he has made certain slight alterations and has added new sections which much enhance its value. A readable account of recent American work is given, but European contributions are not altogether neglected. In some cases the treatment has been made rather stricter, notably in the direction of the equation of maximum work. Whilst this is perhaps desirable on scientific grounds it will reduce to some extent the popularity of the book, since the new treatment is rather more difficult to follow than the old, although more accurate. No attempt is made to preserve a consistent set of symbols throughout, but although this might puzzle a mathematical student it will perhaps enhance the clearness of the work to a student of chemistry. This result is also inevitable if the author’s practice of quoting original papers almost verbatim is followed. The symbols are always clearly defined. Sections which may be especially commmded are those on electromotive force, on activities (in which the recent memoir of A. A. Noyes on the Dcbye-Huckel theory is reproduced verbatim),theory of membrane equilibria, and chemical affinity. A special feature is the inclusion of modern work, and numerical results are freely quoted. This makes the book very useful for reference purposes. Whilst it has not the wealth of numerical data of Lewis and Randall, nor the strict but arid mathematical elegance of Gibbs, it succeeds in giving the impression, by a skilful interweaving of theory with the results of experiment, that thermodynamics is a living science of great value to chemists. This is a really praiseworthy achievement, for which the author deserves, and will receive, the congratulations of his fellow-chemists. J . R. Partington