Book reuieux 1103

organizing the chapters as they have, such over- lap is to be expected. Moreover, without cross- referencing, each paper must stand on its own. Fortunately, to the credit of the individual authors, most of the papers manage to do this. However, it is up to the reader to realize that other aspects of the same problem may be treated in other papers.

Despite these rather serious flaws, volumes 5 and 6 present excellent reviews of the state of the art in geochemistry as of 1974 (the last dates of citation) and as such should be read by all workers interested in sediment mineralogy and chemistry.

John D. M&man

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543

GRASSHOFF, K. [Ed.] 1976. Methods of sea- water analysis. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim and New York. xv + 317 p. $43.60.

Although the needs of those requiring practical methods for the analysis of seawater for its bio- logically important components have been reason- ably adequately filled by the monograph of Strick- land and Parsons ( 1968 ), there has long been a demand for a much more general up-to-date laboratory handbook of seawater analysis. Re- grettably, the present volume only goes a small way toward filling this gap, as many important facets of the subjects, such as the determination of trace metals and the analysis of particulate materials, are virtually ignored. Indeed, on the grounds that it is not sufficiently reliable, no men- tion is made in the text of atomic absorption spec- trometry, even though a section is devoted to the far more controversial topic of anodic stripping voltammetry.

The book commences with a chapter by the editor on sampling and water samplers. It was surprising to find, in this otherwise useful chapter, no discussion of the all-important matter of the design of the sampling program or of sampling by pumping. The next two chapters, which are also contributed by the editor, deal both with filtration and storage of samples and with the determination of salinity (both gravimetrically and by salinome- ter) and chlorinity (by titration), The determina- tion of dissolved oxygen (Winkler) and hydrogen sulfide (photometric) are described in the follow- ing two chapters. These are followed by a short contribution on the measurement of pH, and by a much more extensive chapter by Almgren and Fonselius on the determination of alkalinity, not only by the more conventional back titration and single-point methods but also by computerized automated precision titration. The longest chapter in the book is devoted to the photometric deter- mination of nutrients-including, rather strangely, arsenic. The only reference to the determination

of trace metals, which is surely an important topic at present, is contained in a scrappy and unin- formative chapter by Kremling on polarographic (mainly anodic stripping voltammetric) tech- niques. It is unfortunate that it is not recognized that there is serious interference from copper and nickel in the estimation of zinc by the ASV method described. The determinations of the alkaline earth metals, boron, and the major anions are de- scribed in a short but useful chapter. The penulti- mate chapter, by Dawson and Ehrhardt, which occupies about a fifth of the book, is devoted to methods of analysis for particulate organic carbon and nitrogen and for a variety of organic com- pounds including polyphenolic compounds, poly- nuclear aromatic compounds, chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons, and carbohydrates.

The book concludes with a chapter on auto- matic analysis for nutrient elements and dissolved organic carbon by means of AutoAnalyzer-type systems. Each chapter is introduced by a section giving a potted version of the marine chemistry of the particular component which is to be deter- mined and with a resume of the analytical process. The analytical methods are given in sufficient de- tail for them to be performed by the nonchemist. However, contrary to what is stated in the preface, many of the methods for the more commonly de- termined constituents differ in detail and some- times in principle from the internationally recom- mended ones. Indeed, some authors-particularly Koroleff-seem to have gone out of their way to put forward their own particular methods, or miniscule, and usually unnecessary, modifications of existing ones. Only infrequently is any indica- tion given of the precision which can be attained with any procedure.

The book is attractively printed and well bound. Unfortunately, the literary style of many of the chapters tends to be dull and verbose and, perhaps as a result of difficulties in translation, some sen- tences are so complex that a passage has to be read several times before its meaning is clear. The proofreading appears to have been slipshod and there is an abundance of typographical errors, some of which may cause perplexity to the non- chemist, and hilarity among the cognoscenti, e.g. breezing for breathing (p. 67), acidity for activity ( p. 84 ), oxidized for ionized ( p. 128 ). The bibliographies of the chapters are often incom- plete; for example, four of the references cited on p. 95 are missing.

I. P. Riley

Department of Oceanography The University Liverpool L69 3BX England

Reference

STRICKLAND, J. D., AND T. R. PARSONS. 1968. A practical handbook of seawater analysis. Bull. Fish. Res. Bd. Can. 167.