This 'book is the first in a series of monographs in organic functional group analysis and sets the authors of the succeeding volumes an excellent example. The first of the four chapters is an introduction to the epoxide group and describes the reactivities of the different epoxides to the various reagents used for their determination. The methods of analysis are considered more fully in chapters 2 and 3, chapter z being concerned with twelve different procedures of ring opening with hydrochloric or hydrobromic acids and chapter 3 dealing with other ring-opening reagents. Calorimetric and infra-red methods are also dealt with in this chapter. Only passing reference is made to instrumental techniques of end-point detection and none to automatic analysis. In the final chapter the authors choose the methods which they consider to be of most general applicability. The writers'of this little book, all of whom are employed in the resin industry, have not only provided a concise summary of epoxide chemistry but also a practical guide for the analyst concerned with the determination of epoxide groups. L. H. RUDDLE (Welwyn Garden City) And. Clrimt. Actn, 50 (1970) 363 Advances in Aflalytical Chemistry and Instrumentation. Vol. 7, Edited byC.N. REILLEY AND I?. W. MCLAFFERTY, Interscience Publishers-J. Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, x969, vi +22g pp., price g5.50. This seventh volume contains four review articles on widely differing subjects. The discussion of ultramicroanalysis with the microscope, by W. C. MCCRONE, is a timely reminder of the value of this much neglected technique. It is followed by an article on recent advances in Raman spectroscopy (26 pp.) by J. C. EVANS (written in Ig66), and a comprehensive account of the production and radio-assay of tritiumlabelled compounds (72 pp.) by J. K. LEE AND I;. SCHMIDT-BLEEK. The final chapter on. applications of kinetics to automated quantitative analysis (67 pp.) by H. L. PARDUE, is an excellent treatment of a topic that is difficult to discuss in a readable manner. The derivation of the kinetics and their subsequent treatment to make them suitable for automated systems is handled with great facility, and the discussion of the ways in which the various types of kinetic method (variable or fixed time, slope and signal-stat) have been automated is extremely interesting. The accuracy, precision and selectivity of kinetic methods when carried out automatically under optimized conditions is shown to be better than for many equilibrium, procedures, which bodes well for the future development of analytical kinetic methods. A. TOWNSHEND (Birmingham)