Chemistry

Abstract

THIS new volume completes the chapter on iron and includes also a chapter on the element cobalt. Two more volumes, already in the Press, will complete the series. The concluding portion of the chapter on iron includes the halides, sulphides, sulphates, nitrates and phosphates. It is characteristic of the author's method that, although the space-lattice of iron pyrites is reproduced, and its structure as a ferrous disulphide is thereby demonstrated in the most convincing way, more than a page is given up to the speculations of an earlier period, most of which depend on the hypothesis of “highly polymerised molecules”. Indeed, the conclusion finally reached by modern workers is stated so briefly, in less than four lines of text, and is wedged so tightly between the purely speculative formulae Fe = S=S and S=Fe S, that the casual reader who did not know the correct answer would be unlikely to discover it, or even to recognise its correctness when reading through the text.

A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry

By Dr. J. W. Mellor. Vol. 14: Fe (Part 3), Co. Pp. viii + 892. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green arid Co., Ltd., 1935.) 63s. net.