February i6, 1922] 



NATURE 



213 



>\ eloping methods of manufacture of vitreosil 

 )bes for incandescent gas lighting, which he 

 ought to a successful conclusion only shortly 

 ..cfore his death. 



Quiet and diffident in manner, slight in build, and 

 far from robust, Dr. Bottomley gave little outward 

 sign of the strength that was in him both of char- 

 acter and ability, and as he published but little and 

 never advertised himself at all, he was not well 

 known except to his associates. By these he was 

 recognised as a man of exceptional judgment, busi- 

 ness ability, and integrity, and, besides " being" 

 the Thermal Syndicate, he was a director of Kelvin, 

 Bottomley, and Baird, of Chas. Tennant and Co., 

 and of the Blagdon Manure and Alkali Co. He 

 Avas also (until the war) a director of the Deutsche- 

 English Quartz Schmeltz G.m.b.h., which carried 

 on the quartz fusion processes in Germany. 



Dr. Bottomley Avas married in 1913 to Miss 

 Dorothy Couves, and leaves a widow and two 

 children. He was an outstanding example of the 

 advantage of giving administrative and business 

 responsibility to a man of character and scientific 

 training. ' R. A. S. Paget. 



Prof. Max Verwokn. 



By the death of Prof. Max Verworn at Bonn on 

 November 23 last, a notable figure, who could ill be 

 spared on account of the breadth of his outlook, has 

 been lost to biology. Verworn had just completed 

 his fifty-eighth year, having been born in Berlin on 

 November 4, 1863. He received his school and early 

 university education in his native city, and graduated 

 Ph.D. in Berlin in 1887, and later M.D. in Jena in 

 1889. After graduation in medicine, his interests 

 being then largely zoological, he paid a long visit 

 to Villefranche and Naples, and later continued his 

 investigations along the coast of the Red Sea. On 

 his return to Jena Verworn was appointed assistant 

 in the Physiology Institute, and in 1891 was 

 duly approved as Privatdozent. After a few years' 

 work, including a second visit to the Red Sea, he 

 became extraordinary professor of physiology in 

 Jena in 1895. In 1901 he was called to Gottingen 

 as professor of physiology, and in 19 10, on the death 

 of Pfliiger, he became the professor of physiology 

 at Bonn. Verworn received many academic distinc- 

 tions. In this country he was an Sc.D. of Cam- 

 bridge and an LL.D. of St. Andrews. He was also 

 an honorary or corresponding member of many of 

 the Continental scientific societies, in Moscow, 

 Vienna, Rome, Halle, etc. Twice he was invited 

 to visit America, on the second occasion as Silliman 

 lecturer in the University of Yale. 



Verworn owed his special, almost unique, position 

 in physiology to the catholicity of his interests. 

 He had been impressed from his earliest student 

 days with the value of zoology, and much of his 

 best and most original work was done in the physi- 

 ology of the invertebrates of all classes, although 

 perhaps those of the marine fauna engaged his 

 warmest attention. He used this material with skill 

 and ingenuity in his interpretation of physiological 

 problems in general. Undoubtedly the work by which 

 NO. 2729, VOL. 109] 



Verworn is best known is his " Allgemeine Physi- 

 ologie," which was translated into English by 

 Prof. Lee. This book, which is a mine of informa- 

 tion in the lesser-known aspects of general physi- 

 ology, appeared in 1894, and was immediately 

 recognised as a work of outstanding merit. It has 

 gone through many editions. His Silliman lectures 

 on irritability brought together his special views on 

 the nature and function of the nervous system, a 

 subject which had interested him from the first ; 

 indeed, one of his earliest contributions (in 1889) 

 to attract attention bore the title " Psychophysi- 

 ologisch Protistenstudien." He also held very defi- 

 nite views on the functioning of living tissue in 

 general, and his name will always be associated 

 with his interesting biogen hypothesis. 



That Verworn 's interests were not confined to the 

 study, in any strict sense of the word, of ordinary 

 physiology and zoology is evidenced by his writings 

 on the psychology of primitive art and on the evolu- 

 tion of the human spirit. Certainly for many years 

 before the war he was very interested in archaeo- 

 logical and ethnological problems, and the writer 

 has a most vivid memory of a conversation with 

 Verworn, in which he gave an extraordinarily 

 enthusiastic account of a visit to several of the 

 Indian tribes resident in the south-west of the United 

 States. He had visited these tribes to study the 

 nature of their art, more particularly their colour 

 combinations. Verworn also had a profound know- 

 ledge of the history of early art in Europe, and a 

 very genuine interest in nimiismatics. 



In spite of his many interests, Verworn managed 

 to edit, with success, two physiological journals, one 

 the Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Physiologie, founded 

 by himself, and later, after his appointment to 

 Bonn, the famous Pfliiger's Archiv. E. P. C. 



Col. Willoughby Verner. 

 Col. William Willoughby Cole Verner, who 

 died on January 25 at his home at Algeciras, was in 

 many ways a remarkable man. He was a product of 

 the Army at its best and a living denial of the too- 

 often-quoted saying that Army officers think little and 

 have no interests beyond sport and their "shop." 

 Col. Verner will be remembered not only as the 

 writer of the history of the Rifle Brigade and as 

 the inventor of the luminous magnetic and prismatic 

 compass and of other aids for military sketching 

 and surveying, but also as an authority on the wild 

 birds of South Spain and the discoverer of many of 

 the rock shelters in South- West Spain that had been 

 painted and decorated by Neolithic or Eneolithic 

 man. Articles on the latter were published by him in 

 the Saturday Review, and these brought him into 

 relationship with the Abb^ H. Breuil. The result 

 was a careful survey of the whole district with regard 

 to prehistoric man. Col. Verner, while bird-hunting 

 near Ronda, had once noticed paintings on the walls 

 of a cave near the top of the " sierra." This led to 

 the publication by Breuil, Obermaier, and Verner of 

 the first of an interesting group of Paleolithic cave 

 paintings, which recall the northern group of France 

 and Cantabria. But the memory of Col. Verner 



