THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 71 



for these various conditions, so that there are many 

 genera and species differing in habitat and properties. 

 Even in Greenland, we are informed by Berggren 

 and Dickie, three other species of protophytes are 

 found growing in company with Protococcus nivalis, 

 on the ice or the mud and stones upon it. Every 

 where these plants form a basis for other and higher 

 kinds of life. When the great eruption of Krakatao 

 had destroyed every living thing, and covered the 

 whole island with barren cinders, the spores of these 

 minute plants, borne to it by the winds and nourished 

 by the rains, developed a coating of vegetation of this 

 kind, on which other and higher plants whose spores 

 and seeds had also been wind- or water-borne imme 

 diately developed themselves, presenting an epitome 

 of the first vegetation which clothed our once life 

 less continents when the creative fiat, c Let the earth 

 bring forth plants/ first went forth, but giving no 

 evidence as to the origin of any species of plant 

 de novo. 



But what of the evolution of the red snow-plant 

 and its congeners ? Though there are plants even 

 more simple than the adult red snow-plant, I am 

 not aware that we know any other organism more 

 simple than the microscopic germs or spores of these 

 plants from which they could be derived, and we may 

 as well consider ourselves here face to face with the 

 problem, how can a living cell be produced from 

 inorganic matter, say, from snow-water and the 



