112 SIMPLER ORGANIC SUBSTANCES 



Academician V. Komarov^*^ in the U.S.S.R., have Hkened the 

 appearance of Hfe on the Earth to a process which occurs 

 nowadays in a number of places, namely the first colonisa- 

 tion of newly exposed rock formations. In his book The 

 origin of plants Komarov very vividly describes the first 

 colonisation of lifeless volcanic deposits in Kamchatka. Here, 

 in the waters of hot springs, which emerge into the light of 

 day among heaps of lava and pumice, can be found blue- 

 green algae and colonies of thermophilic bacteria, all cap- 

 able of growth on purely mineral media. 



The analogy between such organisms and the hypotheti- 

 cal first living beings to arise on the Earth appears very 

 widely in the literature of science up till comparatively 

 recently. This reflects a deep conviction that the Earth, 

 before the appearance of life, was also completely devoid of 

 organic substances, like these naked lifeless rocks. In fact, 

 this analogy is completely false. For the rocks are known to 

 be continually receiving the spores and seeds of both lower 

 and higher plants. The fact that some of these develop while 

 others do not simply demonstrates the selectivity of the 

 environment. Under these particular conditions only auto- 

 trophic organisms can develop. This is easy to understand, 

 since no organic substances are present. Moreover, it is clear 

 that the extremely complicated organisation which makes 

 autotrophy possible among present-day organisms is the 

 result of a prolonged evolution of those living beings which 

 produced the spores and seeds arriving on the bare, lifeless 

 rocks. We are in complete disagreement with the theory of 

 ' panspermia ', which implies the transference of ready-made 

 spores to a lifeless Earth. How then, in the absence of such 

 transference, can we imagine the direct formation of auto- 

 trophic organisms from inorganic matter, which would imply 

 the sudden development of systems embodying a most com- 

 plicated organisation of metabolism? 



In a recently published and very relevant paper D. D. 

 Woods and J. Lascelles''^ pointedly remark that if autotrophs 

 are the most primitive living creatures on the Earth, then 

 " something must be imagined analogous to the birth of the 

 Goddess Athene who, you may remember, sprang forth fully 

 armed (in war-gear golden and bright) from the head of 



