ORIGIN OF LIFE ON THE SHORES OF THE OCEAN 117 



certain stage of agglomeration, when a diameter of about 8000 km 

 or slightly smaller than Mars and larger than the moon is reached, 

 water can no longer escape from the system. Only then is it 

 possible for oceans to form and the whole complex of weathering- 

 deposition, mountain building, and continent moving can be set 

 in motion. 



This new evidence has a most important bearing on the question 

 of the origin of life. It sets the first purely chemical stages further 

 back to at least 4000 million years. Indeed it can be said that in 

 the making of the first carbon and nitrogen compounds the origin 

 of life is much earlier than that of the earth. 



It also makes the problem of the primitive accumulation of both 

 organic substance and free energy much simpler. Instead of having 

 to postulate, as Oparin did, that this accumulation was produced 

 by solar radiation in the relatively thin layer on the surface of the 

 primitive earth, it can be spread over a hundred million times 

 greater area of cosmic dust. 



Only some of this primitive accumulation would be retained in 

 a formation of a planet of the size of the earth, for only the outer 

 layers would be free from the heat-induced chemical processes 

 which effectively would convert carbon to iron. Qualitatively, it 

 would mean the presence not so much of gaseous hydrocarbons in 

 the atmosphere, as of liquid and solid complex carbon and nitrogen 

 compounds floating as a film on the surface of the primitive oceans. 

 The quantity might be quite considerable. Analysis of a whole 

 carbonaceous meteorite shows the presence of 2% of carbon and 

 0.3% of nitrogen. It would, however, take a long time for such 

 quantities to be liberated even from the upper layers of the crust. 

 Consequently, the operation of the shoreline concentration process 

 described in the 1958 paper would probably still be required. 



The net result of this new approach is to a large extent to 

 support the original Oparin hypothesis, with the difference that 

 his initial gaseous hydrocarbons and amrnonia would be replaced 

 by solid or liquid energy-rich carbonaceous and nitrogenous 

 compounds, and most apt to develop further into those on which 

 life would be ultimately based. 



Further, it would dispose completely of the criticism put forward 



