614 Annals New York Academy of wSciences 



Vienna, had said that the "organized elements" were mineral spherolites. 

 Papp stated that this only showed that one needs extensive trainmg in micro- 

 biology to recognize these forms. 



H. C. Urey: Urey mentioned that Volcani, the microbiologist at Lajolla, 

 was not discouraged. 



C. M. Palmer {Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control, Robert A. 

 Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, Cincinnati, Ohio) : He stated that it should be 

 mentioned that Claus was capable of observing and finding structural details 

 that other people often overlooked; i.e., details on filamentous algae which had 

 never been seen, although the forms had been known for more than 100 years. 



Pierre Bourrelly (Department of Cryptogamic Botany, Miisee d'Histoire 

 Naturelle, Paris, France) : Bourrelly saw the microscopic preparations. He 

 believed that the "organized elements" were definitely organisms. They did 

 not look much like hystrichospheres, and they did not seem to be contaminants. 

 He was puzzled because they resembled terrestrial forms; he thought they should 

 exhibit greater differences. 



R. Berger: He recalled that Papp had implied that the terrestrial evolu- 

 tionary sequence might have occurred elsewhere. There might be an equiva- 

 lent biochemistry which would lead to similar organisms. 



J. D. Bernal: He expressed the opinion that the carbonaceous meteorites 

 could not be of terrestrial origin because of their unusual mineral content. 

 If they were not terrestrial, he questioned what the origin might be. Only 

 Earth and Mars are capable of holding water; therefore, if the "organized 

 elements" arose elsewhere than on earth, one would be forced to choose between 

 two possibilities: that the same biochemistry is prescribed for every origin of 

 life and, therefore, life always follows the same trend; or that all life forms 

 originated from the same ultimate life source. In other words, one is faced 

 with these questions: did life originate in several places as a result of the same 

 biochemical mechanism, or did Ufe evolve only once and then spread to different 

 places? He added that four billion years might not be a sufficient amount of 

 time for biochemical evolution on earth. 



H. C. Urey: According to Dr. Urey, life might have transferred to the moon 

 from earth. 



P. Tasch: He was one who considered the moon transfer theory a serious 

 possibility, though a difficult one to accept. 



H. DoMBROWSKi {Department of Balneology, Justus-lJebig University 

 Giessen, Germany): Dombrowski stated that there is an analogy between the 

 problem of "organized elements" and his work obtaining living bacteria from 

 salt deposits. Chemists have known for a long time that salts contained less 

 than 0.01 per cent of nitrogen. The origin of this nitrogen could not be ex- 

 plained until biologists started to work on salt samples. Now it is known that 

 this nitrogen content is associated with the bacteria embedded in the salt. 



Brian Mason {Department of Mineralogy, The American Musuem of Natural 

 History, New York, N. Y.) : Mason thought that it would be very difficult not 

 to contaminate a meteorite in a museum. The American Museum of Natural 

 History acquired its Orgueil sample in 1901, but it is not known what happened 

 to it before this date. The sample was kept in an open box. It should be 



