SESSION II. DISCUSSION 179 



7. A. P. Terent'ev, E. I. Klabunovskiï & V. V. Patrikeev, Dokl. Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 



74, No. 5, 947, 1950- 



8. A. P. Terent'ev & E. I. Klabunovskiï, this book, p. 95; E. I. Klabunovskiï, this 



book, p. 158. 



9. A. P. Terent'ev, E. I. Klabunovskiï & E. I. Budovskiï, Sbornik statei po obshcheî 



Khimii, vol. 2, p. 1612, 1953. 

 10. Cf. Uchennye Zapiski Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 151, no. 8, 



p. 145, 1951- 

 II Cf. Ber. dtsch. chem. Ges., 37, 4696, 1904; 42, 141, 1908; J. Amer. chem. Soc, 57, 



377) 1935 3 C. DORNO, Physik der Sonnen- und Himmelstrahlung, 1919; Nature, 



Land., 134, 275, 1934. 



12. L. A. Smirnov, Bot. Zh., 35, No. 4, 394, 1950. 



13. V. V. Alpatov, Priroda, No. 11, 59, 1951. 



14. O. K. Nastyukova, Dokl. Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 59, No. 9, 1647, 1948. 



15. V. I. Vernadskiî, Biogeokhimicheskie ocherki. Leningrad, Izd. Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 



1940. 



16. Opredelitel Faunai Flora Morel S.S.S.R. Moscow, 1948, p. 359, cf. Ref. [15], 



p. 195; Nature, Lond., 132, 287, 1933. 

 I. L. Korobkov, Vvedenie v izuchenie iskopaemykh Mollyuskov. Izdate'l'stvo 

 Leningradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 1950, p. ici. 



17. L. S. Berg, Priroda, No. 2, 43, 1949. 



18. A. R. Kizel' et al, Dokl. Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 31, No. 6, 602, 1941; 25, No. 6, 



481, 1939. 



19. G. F. Gauze, Asimmetriya Protoplazmy. Moscow, 1940; Biologicheskiî Zh. 



No. 6, 201 1, 1936. 



20. E. I. Klabunovskiï & V. V. Patrikeev, Vestnik Moskovskogo Gesudarstvennogo 



Universiteta, No. 5, 53, 1953. 



21. V. V. Alpatov, Dokl. Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 59, No. 7, 1365, 1948. 



M. A. Messineva (U.S.S.R.) : 



The organization of the present Symposium shows how necessary it is for specialists 

 of the most various departments of science to collaborate if the problem of the origin of 

 life on the Earth is to be solved and also if they are to discover what are the specific 

 properties of living material. 



However there has not, until now, been enough co-ordination of the work on this 

 problem, so some of the investigations have been wrongly directed. For example, there 

 has been a tendency for more than 10 years to identify some of the questions concerning 

 the possible ways in which life could have arisen with those concerning the origin of 

 petroleum [i, 2, 3]. At this Symposium we have listened to a paper by Prof. P. N. 

 Kropotkin (p. 84). 



Such an identification is quite wrong. The conditions necessary for the origin and 

 development of life are quite different from those required for the production of petroleum 

 and the geological formations from which it comes. According to the very accurate 

 definition of V. I. Vernadskiî [4] : 'From a geochemical point of view living material means 

 oxygen-containing material rich in carbon; only on some occasions does it manifest itself 

 as carbonaceous organism, containing more than 10% by weight of carbon (p. 147, 

 Vernadskii's italics). 



The composition and energy content of the components of petroleums is of quite the 

 opposite nature. All petroleums which have so far been studied have a very strict limit as 

 regards the two main elements carbon and hydrogen. The hydrocarbons which enter into 

 the composition of petroleums show great resistance to external influences, even to the 

 action of bacteria. 



There are only a few types of bacteria which can use petroleum and for this they must 

 also have scarce nitrogenous and phosphorus-containing nutrients. As yet there is no 

 definitive agreement about the possibility of the development of obligate anaerobes 

 depending on petroleum. And, even more significant, recent experimental studies have 



