90 



NATURE 



[October 4, 1917 



afterwards became one of the largest dyeworks in 

 Great Britain, having a floorage area of more than 

 100,000 square vards, and being equipped for cleaning, 

 dveing, and finishing every kind of textile material. 

 As a voung man Mr. Pullar studied chemistry at Edin- 

 burgh Universitv and the Yorkshire College at Leeds, 

 and he visited the most important dyeworks in France, 

 Germanv, Switzerland, and the United States. Since 

 the outbreak of war he spared neither time nor labour 

 in the national cause, and was prominently associated 

 from the beginning with Government action concerning 

 the development of British chemical industries, particu- 

 larly the colour industry. Mr. Pullar was connected 

 with nearly all the philanthropic and educational move- 

 ments in his native county. He was a fellow of the 

 Chemical Society, a member of the Society of Chemical 

 Industry, and for the two years 1915-16 was president 

 of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, and chairman 

 of the Dvewares Supply Committee formed by that 

 society in' October, 1914! In December, 1914, he was 

 appointed a member of the Board of Trade Advisory 

 Committee, which was entrusted with the difficult task 

 of drafting a scheme to ensure the manufacture of 

 dyes in this country on an adequate scale. This ulti- 

 niately led to the formation of British Dyes, Ltd. He 

 was also a member of the Provisional Committee of 

 the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers. 

 His membership of the Perthshire Appeal Tribunal 

 and his duties as a Commissioner under the National 

 Service scheme also made a heavy draft on his energies, 

 and his many public activities, coupled with sorne 

 recent labour difficulties, led to a breakdown in his 

 health. 



By the death of Philippe de Vilmorin on June 30, 

 at the early age of forty-five, a notable and brilliant 

 figure has been removed from the horticultural world, 

 one that science can ill afford to lose. Inheritor of a 

 great name, and head of a great firm w'ith unrivalled 

 resources, de Vilmorin placed both freely at the ser- 

 vice of the science to the interests of which he was 

 devoted. The precision in methods of plant-breeding 

 which Mendel's discovery introduced at once appealed 

 to him. He started experimental work in these direc- 

 tions, and some of his results with wheat and peas 

 have already been published and are well known to 

 geneticists. But while deeply interested in the purely 

 scientific side of genetic studies, de Vilmorin was fully 

 alive to their immense practical importance, and gave 

 every encouragement to his staff at Verrieres-le-Buisson 

 to v^'otk along these lines. The achievements of Louis 

 and Henri de Vilmorin, his father and his grandfather, 

 had made him realise that the continued prosperity of 

 a great and progressive firm must depend eventually 

 upon the attitude adopted towards scientific discovery. 

 ' He was actuated by an earnest desire to bring the so- 

 called practical and the scientific workers into closer 

 contact with one another, and spared neither time nor 

 means to effect his object. A great opportunity came 

 to him when the fourth International C'ongress on 

 Genetics met at Paris in 1911, and de Vilmorin availed 

 himself of it to the utmost. He undertook the arduous 

 work of secretary, in which position his influence and 

 prestige were exerted to bring together for their mutual 

 piofit a representative gathering from horticultural 

 and biological circles. His great personal charm played 

 no small part in making the congress the great success 

 that it undoubtedly was. He undertook the further 

 task of collecting and editing the contributions made 

 to the congress, and the beautiful and valuable volume 

 of reports issued owes as much to his en^thi^siasm as to 

 his generosity. De Vilmorin also assisted in the pro- 

 gress of horticulture in other directions. He published 

 papers on the beet-sugar industry of the United States, 

 on the culture of ginseng in Korea and Manchuria, and 



NO. 2501, VOL. 100] 



on the tobaccos of commerce. He was also responsible 

 for three important publications of his firm — " Les 

 Fleurs de Pleine Terre," " Le Manuel de Floriculture," 

 and the ",Hortus Vilmorinianus." The first two are 

 standard works on flower gardening, while the last is 

 a valuable report on the behaviour of rare and little- 

 known plants tested by the firm. Philippe de Vilmorin 

 filled a unique place in the scientific world. No man 

 was better endowed for helping to bridge over the gulf 

 that long existed between the horticulturist a^d the 

 botanist, between the garden and the laboratory. He 

 played a great part in such success as has already been 

 achieved. He would have played a greater part had 

 his life been spared. 



The question of the religious or magical significance 

 underlying the customs of bull-baiting or cattle-driving 

 has been discussed without much result. Mr. W. 

 Crooke, in Folk-Lore (vol. xxviii.. No. 2), has collected 

 a number of instances from India and elsewhere in 

 which, at the critical seasons of agriculture, particu- 

 larly at the sowing and transplanting of rice, the plough 

 cattle are driven from their stalls and exposed to con- 

 siderable violence. This may be conjectured to be a 

 method of arousing their vitality and that of the crops. 

 The late Major Tremearne believed that the form of 

 bull-baiting practised in Nigeria was probably a fer- 

 tility rite. The question is still obscure, and much 

 more material must be collected before any definite 

 conclusion can be reached. 



In the September issue of Man the Rev. A. T. 

 Bryant describes the Zulu cult of the dead. Their 

 religion makes no definite statement on the doctrine 

 of the immortality of the soul. The soul is generally 

 believed to survive death, and sacrifice is offered to it 

 practically continuously for an indefinite period of 

 time ; but how long it will continue to live, and whether 

 or not it will endure for ever, are not defined. A man 

 dies, but only in his flesh ; his spirit still endures ; if 

 i it does not go to the bosom of Nkulunkulu, the 

 ; Creator, it goes where he is supposed to be, to the 

 ! nearest veldt. There it becomes changed, and in due 

 ' course reappears in visible form in the guise of a 

 snake — not a previously existing snake, but it simply 

 materialises into one. To kill one of these spirit snakes 

 was in former times a serious offence, and tests are 

 prescribed by which such snakes can readily be iden- 

 tified, one distinction from other varieties being that 

 they are all harmless. 



Prof. Futaki discusses the cause of typhus fever 

 in The New East for August (vol. i.. No. 3). He and 

 his co-workers claim to have demonstrated the presence 

 of a delicate spiral micro-organism or spirochete in 

 this disease. It measures 6-8 microns in length, and 

 is mostly found in the kidneys and suprarenal capsules. 

 Monkeys can be infected by' injection of the blood of a 

 patient at an early stage of the disease, and similar 

 spirochetes are present in the monkey's kidney. 



In Science for August 17 (vol. xlvi.. No. 1181) Mr. 

 N. A. Cobb contributes a general article on intra- 

 vitam staining of tissues. For the examination of 

 such objects perfectly corrected lenses must be em- 

 ployed, and Mr. Cobb recommends the use of one 

 aporhromatic objective (2 mm.) as a condenser for 

 another apochromatic objective. This necessitates 

 mounting the object to be examined between two thin 

 cover-glasses, which may be supported upon a special 

 carrier. By this arrangement the condenser objective 

 may be brought into proper focus. 



In a circular issued by the Local Government Board 

 attention is directed to the probability of the occur- 

 rence of indigenous cases of malaria in England. 



