Professor OTTO BRAITSCH’S Entstehung und Stoffbestand der Salz- lagerstiitten has since its publication in 1962 enjoyed a reputation as the most complete and authoritative treatment, in any language, of the geochemistry of evaporites. The issue of this translation will now make it accessible to a much wider circle of readers. The years since first publica- tion of the German edition have seen a great surge of discussion and research on evaporites among English-speaking geologists, and while BRAITSCH’S work was important to some of these it can now no longer be ignored by any. It may be worth pointing out that, title notwithstanding, this volume takes as its subject not only the salts but all evaporite minerals and rocks, but that it makes no attempt to go beyond the geochemical evidence in discussing the origin of these evaporites. The reader should not expect to find here any extensive discussion of paleogeography and stratigraphy, or even petrographic detail. Within its scope of geochemistry and mineral- ogy the coverage is extensive.