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1103

Book reuieux
organizing
the chapters as they have, such overlap is to be expected.
Moreover,
without
crossreferencing,
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
Woods

Hole Oceanographic
Hole, Massachusetts

GRASSHOFF,

water

K.

[Ed.]

analysis.

and New York.

Institution
02543

1976. Methods
of seaVerlag Chemie, Weinheim
xv + 317 p. $43.60.

Although the needs of those requiring practical


methods for the analysis of seawater for its biologically important
components have been reasonably adequately filled by the monograph of Strickland and Parsons ( 1968 ), there has long been a
demand
for a much more general up-to-date
laboratory
handbook
of seawater
analysis.
Regrettably,
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 mention is made in the text of atomic absorption spectrometry, 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 salinometer) and chlorinity
(by titration),
The determination of dissolved oxygen (Winkler)
and hydrogen
sulfide (photometric)
are described in the following 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
determination 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 uninformative
chapter by Kremling
on polarographic
stripping
voltammetric)
tech(mainly
anodic
that it is not recognized
niques. It is unfortunate
that there is serious interference
from copper and
nickel in the estimation of zinc by the ASV method
The determinations
of the alkaline
described.
earth metals, boron, and the major anions are described in a short but useful chapter. The penultiwhich
mate chapter, by Dawson and Ehrhardt,
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 compounds including
polyphenolic
compounds,
polynuclear aromatic compounds, chlorinated
aromatic
hydrocarbons,
and carbohydrates.
The book concludes with a chapter on automatic 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 determined and with a resume of the analytical process.
The analytical methods are given in sufficient
detail 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 determined
constituents
differ in detail and sometimes in principle
from the internationally
recommended 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
is any indicaof existing ones. Only infrequently
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 sentences 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 nonchemist, 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 incomplete; 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
J. D., AND T. R. PARSONS.
1968. A
practical handbook of seawater analysis. Bull.
Fish. Res. Bd. Can. 167.

STRICKLAND,

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