In this volume has been collected information which, it is hoped, will be found useful to those persons - a numerous class - who have occasion to employ alcohol scientifically or industrially in their various callings.

Widely scattered through scientific and technical literature are many facts and figures concerning alcohol, which in one way or another are of interest and importance not only to the professional chemist, the physicist, or the scientific investigator, but also to the manufacturer, the engineer, the technical student, the industrial research worker, and the user of a motor-car. To many among these it will, doubtless, be a convenience to have the various facts, or the most important of them, brought together and made readily accessible in a single volume such as the one now presented.

Half humorously, sulphuric acid was formerly said to be an index of national prosperity. Possibly, at the present day, industrial alcohol is an even better index. But be that as it may, the importance of alcohol to manufactures is undoubted; and in view of this, the question of industrial alcohol and its applications, both here and abroad, has been dealt with at some length. A chapter on methyl alcohol has been included, since this product is closely associated with ordinary alcohol in technical practice.

A question which may tend to become prominent in the near future is the use of alcohol as a fuel in internal-combustion engines. Another is the production of synthetic alcohol, either from calcium carbide or from the ethylene present in coke-oven gas. Some consideration has been given to these matters in Chapters II and IX.

The author's cordial thanks are due to the Government Chemist, Sir J. J. Dobbie, F.R.S., for permission to use various data obtained in the Government Laboratory, and to the Controller of H.M Stationery Office as regards the alcohol tables in Chapter V (Ethyl Alcohol: Its Occurrence And Physical Properties)] and much of the material utilised in compiling Chapter XII (The Physiological Effects Of Alcohol). Fe blocks of illustrations he wishes also to thank Messrs. Egrot an Grange, Paris; Messrs. Blair, Campbell, and McLean, Glasgow Messrs. The Haslam Foundry Co., Derby; and the Editor of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing (Figs. 2-9).

June. 1919.