88 LIFE: ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 



had been an unprecedented rainfall in May; and in September 

 21.25 inches of rain fell in nearby Dark Canyon, the local Ranger 

 Station reporting 17 inches as falling within a few hours. Appar- 

 ently enough water seeped through imperfections in some 500 to 

 800 feet of rock to moisten the exposed rock wall and perhaps carry 

 some spores of algae; or the spores may have been carried in by 

 visitors or by down-draft air currents. An electric lamp, burning 

 seven hours daily, supplied the needed light. Several other growths 

 of algae were also found. 9 



Particular mention must be made of the extremely resistant 

 spores of the anthrax bacillus, which produces a highly contagious 

 and usually fatal disease in men and animals. Whole fields have 

 become a source of infection because of the burial there of sheep 

 that died of this disease, which is supposed to be the "very grievous 

 murrain" referred to in Exodus — a view supported by the further 

 statement that when Moses sprinkled toward heaven in the sight 

 of Pharaoh handfuls of "ashes of the furnace," it became "small 

 dust over all the land of Egypt, and "it became a boil breaking 

 forth with blains (blisters) upon man and upon beast." This 

 description would fit dried infectious material, which in the hot 

 climate of Egypt could be readily cultured and dried. The bio- 

 logical warfare now being spoken of may have thus had a very 

 early prototype. Anthrax (the word also means carbuncle) is 

 known as splenic fever; in French it is charbon, a burning coal. 

 It was also known as "wool-sorter's disease" because it was often 

 carried to human beings by unsterilized wool and by animal hairs 

 used for shaving brushes, etc. 



In conclusion, it seems evident that the essential criteria of life 

 are twofold: (1) the ability to direct chemical change by catalysis; 

 (2) the ability to reproduce by autocatalysis. The ability to 

 undergo heritable catalyst change is general, and is essential where 

 there is competition between different types of living things, as 

 has been the case in the evolution of plants and animals. Even 

 with a single living unit, heritable catalyst change would be es- 

 sential to permit survival in ever-changing vicissitudes of the 

 milieu, including climate, irradiation, and chemical substances 

 presented as foods or as poisons. 



While we are most familiar with relatively complicated living 

 units — from mites to elephants, from molds to oaks — we are con- 

 fronted in genes, bacteriophages, mitochondria and viruses with 

 units approaching the dimensions of large molecules or small mole- 



