Book Reviews
method. Various mechanisms of recombination are taken up and the microwave, optical and mass spectrometric techniques are described. After a beautifully written introduction, the final chapter by Kerwin, Marmet and Carette on high-resolution electron beams is a bit disappoint,ing. Their survey of electrostatic selectors is merely descriptive and not so much &s a single equation on the theory of their operation appears. They do, however, present the construction details of the widely copied 127" electrostatic selector developed by Marmet and Kerwin. Technically, when they say (p. 531) that the first such instrument was developed by Clarke they may be correct since the many earlier 127" instruments were, strictly speaking, analyzers rather than selectors although the construction and theoretical bases are essentiitlly the same. The same technicality rescues their statement (p. 539) that no results of investigations using the cyhndrical mirror device have been reported. Mehlhorn, for example, has been using such an instrument for years but again as a spectrometer. Reading this book might be likened to making a series of visits to the offices and laboratories of the various authors. You come away feeling you have learned something about the work of each one and perhaps also some of his frustrations and his hopes. Although this book contains a wealth of material not readily found elsewhere, one could always quibble about the choice of topics. But since a second volume is forthcoming, one can hope that his favorite subject then gets the thorough treatment these nine have in this volume.