EVOLUTION TRACED BIOCHEMICALLY 43 



in the neighborhood of Caen (see Smith, cited by Joly) as 

 much as 1.23 tons of potassium per square mile per year, and 

 this indicates that other salts were present. Though chlorides 

 were then not as concentrated as they are in the ocean today, 

 some of what the first condensations dissolved from the 

 hot lithosphere must have been carried into the water-laden 

 atmosphere of the time. These chlorides, thus present, 

 must have been to a great extent dissociated (ionized) 

 through the electric discharges accompanying the condensa- 

 tions and free chlorine would thus be present to react 

 with the other constituents of the atmosphere and promote 

 the formation of new compounds. With the first condensa- 

 tions the water acting on carbides of the hot rock crust, 

 such as those of calcium and iron, would set free methane 

 and other hydrocarbons, which with the free chlorine 

 would render possible other syntheses. 



What all the compounds so formed were one cannot 

 predicate with certainty, but one may reasonably assume 

 that some of them were carbonyl chloride (COCI2), carbonyl 

 chloramide (CIC0-NH2), chlor-methane (CHs-CI), ethane 

 (CH3CH3), acetic acid (CH3COOH), acetamide (CH3CO- 

 NH2), amino-acetic acid (NH2-CHo-COOH), propionic acid 

 (CH3-CH2-COOH), amino-propionic acid (CH:,CH-NH2- 

 COOH) and thio-amino-propionic acid (CH2SH-CH-NH2- 

 COOH). Such would be condensed with the water vapor 

 when the temperature fell below ioo°c., and in small bodies 

 of water, which by evaporation became reduced in volume, 

 they would become concentrated and then further syntheses 

 would occur. 



From these, under the physicochemical conditions pre- 

 vailing in their media, in which were contained chlorides, 

 phosphates and also catalysts, traces of iron salts for example, 

 peptides and even polypeptides, consisting of many amino 

 acid links, would be synthesized, some of these approaching 

 in composition the constitution of proteins. 



These syntheses would take place countless millions of 

 millions of times, resulting in many varieties of products 

 until, eventually, there would be formed a protein complex 

 of ultramicroscopic size, endowed with the constitution, 

 and, accordingly, the properties of an ultramicroscopic 



