At first glance it may seem presumptuous to want to add yet another to the numerous books on Differential Thermal Analysis (DT A). Thermoanalytical methods have been in use for some time, as shown by the more than five thousand publications containing DT A or TG curves listed by SMOTHERS and CHIANG in the bibliography to their handbook and abstracted in the several volumes of Thermal Analysis Abstracts (TAA), edited by J. P. REDFERN for the International Con federation for Thermal Analysis (ICT A). Every three years the proceed ings of ICT A meetings are published, bringing the latest results of thermoanalytic research. There is also the Scifax DT A Data Index, edited by R. C. MACKENZIE (1962) and modeled on the ASTM pattern card index (used for X-ray investigations), a compilation of the DT A data for several hundred minerals, and inorganic and organic materials. The theoretical foundations of thermogravimetry and DT A have been described in detail by LEHMANN, DAS and PAETSCH (1953), R. C. MACKENZIE (1957, 1970), DUVAL (1963), WENDLANDT (1964), GARN (1965), F. PAULIK et al. (1966), SMOTHERS and CHIANG (1966), and KEATTCH (1969). Thermoanalytical results are strongly influenced by various factors relative to preparation and equipment (see 1-2. 4 of this study). This is the reason why we frequently find, in these books as well as in the Scifax-Card catalog, contradictory data on the same substance.

Inhalt
I. Methods.- 1. Thermogravimetry and Differential Thermal Analysis.- 2. Heat Changes and Their Measurement in DTA.- 3. Calibration and Exactness of Measurement.- 4. Quantitative Determinations by DTA.- 5. Methods Combined with DTA.- II. Application of Differential Thermal Analysis to Mineralogy: Identification and Semi-Quantitative Determination of Minerals.- 1. Elements and Chalcogenides.- 2. Halogenides and Sulfates.- 3. Oxides and Hydroxides.- 4. Carbonates and Nitrates.- 5. Borates, Phosphates, and Arsenates.- 6. Ortho-, Ring-, and Chain Silicates.- 7. Sheet Silicates.- 8. Zeolites.- 9. Allophane, Opal, and Organic Matter of Soils and Sediments.- 10. Development of Identification Diagrams.- III. Special Application of Differential Thermal Analysis in Mineralogy: Statements about Chemical Composition, Degree of Disorder, and Genesis of Minerals.- 1. Influence of the Chemical Composition on the Decomposition Temperatures of Carbonates and Hydroxides.- 2. Influence of the Chemical Composition on the Temperatures of Structural Transformations.- 3. Influence of the Chemical Composition on the Curie-Temperatures of Magnetites.- 4. Contribution to the Classification of Chlorites.- 5. Smectites and Vermiculites: The Distinction between Di- and Tri-Octahedral Minerals and Grain Size Determination.- 6. Determination of the Degree of Disorder in Kaolinites.- 7. The Interdependence of Degree of Disorder, High-Low Inversion, and Temperature of Formation of Low-Temperature Cristobalites.- 8. The Determination of Inversion Temperatures of Quartz Crystals as a Petrologic Tool.- 9. The High-Low Inversion Behaviour of Microcrystalline Quartz Crystals.- References.