Assay of Vitamins in Pharmaceutical Preparations

Abstract

This is the eagerly awaited, revised and moder- nized second edition of what we often call 'the student version of DHZ', Deer, Howie and Zussman's famous reference work on the common minerals, as familiar to petrologists and mineralogists as the Yellow Pages are to the home-owner. This new version certainly looks a lot cheerier than the first edition; with a brightly coloured micrograph on the cover and fashion- able designer lettering it reminded me faintly of a mail-order catalogue. Will the inside be radically different, I wondered, or will it all be reassuringly familiar? The new edition is bigger than the first, and about half as thick again, with nearly 700 pages. Some of this increase is taken up by a large and more readable type-face, but there are consider- able changes and extensions to the coverage of most mineral species. To balance these, datolite, rosenbuschite, lhvenite, catapleiite and the hel- vite group have been sacrificed. As before, many of the minerals covered are not, strictly speaking, rock-formers, and some rare but genuinely rock- forming minerals, like naujakasite, are missed. Nevertheless, the coverage is comprehensive and includes the vast majority of minerals petrologists are likely to encounter.