Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry for 1917

Abstract

THE Chemical Society commenced the practice of issuing a collection of reports on the different branches of chemistry fourteen years ago, with the probable object of supplying to the individual chemist a review of that division of chemistry in which he was particularly interested. At the same time, the book is to furnish the reader with a concise survey of branches in which he has only a general interest. These two objects seem to have been attained with a fair degree of success both in the previous volumes and in the present one. It must be admitted, however, that the chemist who endeavoured to read the book through from cover to cover would run considerable risk of suffering from a severe attack of mental indigestion. This characteristic is, of course, an inevitable result of the compression of a year's material into a comparatively brief report, and does mot depreciate the efforts of the various contributors. Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry for 1917. Issued by the Chemical Society. Vol. xiv. Pp. ix + 264. (London: Gurney and Jackson, 1918.) Price 4s. 6d. net.