1902-3.1 The Pal^ochemistry of the Ocean. 541 



marine unicellular organisms of to-day have accommodated themselves 

 to these elements in the sea water? If the blood plasma of Vertebrates, 

 because of the, forces of heredity, reproduce the proportions v^^hich 

 obtained in pre-Cambrian oceans, why should not the cells of the tissues 

 because of the same forces, reproduce in themselves the proportions 

 which obtained in sea water of a much earlier geological period ? In 

 other words, if the proportions in the plasma are inherited, why should 

 not those found in the living matter be considered as inherited also ? 

 An affirmative answer to this question would postulate that the propor- 

 tions of the four elements in early pre-Cambrian seas were very greatly 

 different from what they are now in the ocean — as different almost as 

 the proportions of the four elements in muscle are from those found in 

 the blood plasma. 



The question is one of great importance in physiology, and, though 

 its solution presents great difficulties, its very interest compels a con- 

 sideration of it. We know that the unit of living matter, the cell, 

 whether of animal or vegetable kingdom, presents, on the whole, the 

 same type of structure, and it goes through the same morphological 

 changes. Some of these are grouped under the process of division, and 

 its characteristic details are the same in both animal and vegetable 

 forms. Now, the animal and vegetable cells are derived from a single 

 type which must have existed at the very dawn of life on the globe. 

 The whole process of division, with its peculiar morphological features, 

 was elaborated in this single-celled organism, which transmitted it to its 

 descendants. Since, as already stated, the process of division is the same 

 in both kingdoms, it is obvious that it has continued almost unchanged 

 through an infinity of generations, animal and vegetable, and for many 

 millions of years, and that this preservation of the original type is due to 

 heredity. If, now, heredity is so powerful in regard to structure, is it a 

 negligible force in regard to chemical composition ? Is living matter 

 fixed in structure almost beyond change, however widely the conditions 

 under which it lives may vary, but unfixed and changeable in its rela- 

 tions to the chemical elements? As structure depends so largely on 

 composition, it would be difficult to explain how living matter could so 

 widely vary its relations to the elements and at the same time retain its 

 structure. 



We are, therefore, forced to a choice of hypotheses of which one 

 postulates that all of the relations of living matter to sodium, potassium, 

 calcium and magnesium are a result of inherited forces, while the other 

 concedes that in regard to the circulatory fluids the proportions are 



