Fd Cosmet. Toxicol. Vol. 4, pp. 561-564. Pergamon Press 1966.

Printed in Great Britain

BOOK REVIEWS
Industrial Chemicals. 3rd ed. By W. L. Faith, D. B. Keyes and R. L. Clark. John WHey &
Sons, New York, 1965. pp. viii +852. 190s.
The third edition of this book is indeed a welcome arrival. Rapid developments make
frequent revisions of such a text imperative, and compared with its 1957 predecessor this
version contains many notable additions, particularly in the field of new petrochemical
processes. Moreover, for those concerned with economics, process costings and other
commercial aspects of the industry, the extension of price and use patterns to 1964 and of
production graphs to 1963 will be of particular advantage.
The general format of the book however remains unchanged. The concise presentation
of production methods, clear flow diagrams and handy lists of material requirements re-
main, together with information on properties and ranges of commercial grades and practi-
cal guidance on containers and labelling requirements.
Inevitably, the economic aspects, regulations, use patterns and prices are presented from
the American angle and the lists of manufacturers and plant sites given for each chemical
are limited to those in the USA. But for any given process, material requir.ements and yields,
processing techniques and properties tend to be much the same the whole world over, and
there are, after all, accepted factors for converting US industrial and economic data to
give an estimate of current or future situations in the UK.
The alphabetical lay-out of the book spans 137 important products, including heavy
chemicals, petrochemicals, fertilizer materials and some fermentation products, such as
penicillin and monosodium glutamate, and altogether presents a useful birds-eye view of
the modern chemical industry.

Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology. Plastics, Resins, Rubbers, Fibers. Vol. 1.
Ablative Polymers to Amino Acids. Edited by H. F. Mark, N. G. Gaylord and N. M.
Bikales. Interscience Publishers, New York, 1964. pp. xviii+893. 375s.
Over the past 40 yr, so rapid have been the practical and theoretical developments in the
polymer field that keeping track of the available information has become exceedingly more
difficult. This burden has now been considerably lessened by the publication of the first of a
series of volumes designed to provide in encyclopaedic form a comprehensive coverage of
the main aspects of the subject. Directed primarily at the scientist or technologist familiar
with basic scientific and engineering principles, the editors aim to present a series of about
450 authoritative articles by specialists in the field. A world-wide authorship is intended,
although contributors from the USA feature prominently in this present volume which
contains the first 31 articles.
Alphabetically arranged and embracing "Ablative Polymers" to "Amino Acids",
articles on the various synthetic and natural macromolecules and their starting materials
are included and details are given in most cases of physical and chemical properties, methods
and processes of preparation and manufacture, and economic aspects, as well as a discussion
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