SCIENCE-SUPPLEMENT 



SCIENCE NEWS 



LIFE ORIGINATED WHERE TIDES EBB 

 AND FLOW 



Science Service 



In a shallow brackish water, wanned by the 

 suu to temperatures such as occur in tidepools 

 of to-day, the forerunners of living ithdngs as we 

 knew them must have ^originated. Dr. D. T. Mae- 

 Dougal, director of the department of botanical 

 research of the Carnegie Institution of Wash- 

 ington, told the Eoyal Canadian Institute in 

 describing what the scientist knows of the be- 

 ginning's of life. 



' ' The first form of life on this globe must have 

 been minute masses of primordial jellies," said 

 Dr. MacDougal. ' ' The beginnings of life could 

 not have been dn the monotonus immensity of the 

 seas, which are really a uniformly salt solution 

 with but minute variations. Where the sea met 

 the land, however, many new combinations were 

 possible. There was no soil on the land, for this 

 is a product of plants and animals. The land- 

 scape was of bare rocks, sand and water. Rapid 

 alternations of sunshine and clouds with abun- 

 dant rains would have characterized such a time, 

 and volcanoes may have belched out earth encir- 

 cling volumes of ashes and gases, some of which 

 would come doAvn with the rains. Hydrocarbons, 

 ammonia, hydrogen phosphide and other necessary 

 compo^unds might thus have been brought to- 

 gether accidentalljr but frequently with the result 

 that there may have been formed countless masses 

 of matter which might have become the basis of 

 changes upon which life might be developed. 



' ' In any case the compounds formed, which 

 might have been jellies, did not fall into the way 

 of beginning life as we know it until it became 

 the seat of changes by which organic compounds 

 were formed. For this to have happened, the 

 colloidal or jelly condition must be assumed. 

 This formation of additional masses of jelly and 

 retaining them would go on until a certain size 

 was reached, when fission or division would en- 

 sue as a drop of water ^too large divides into two 

 smaller ones. This would have been the begin- 

 nings of growth and reproduction which are to- 

 day the fundamental phases of biology. ' ' 



The basis of all life from moss to men is proto- 

 plasm, a jelly-like substance, said Dr. Mac- 

 Dougal. The way in which this delicate jelly 

 acts is universal, but its make-up is infinitely 



complex, altiiough all protoplasm is made up of 

 four general classes of substances, albumins, 

 gums or mucilages, Idpoids or fatty substances, 

 and soaps. 



' ' Somewhere in the ever more complex web of 

 life the sun-traps or screens of coloring matter, 

 which absorb and use the energy of certain rays 

 of light in running the protoplasmic mill of 

 plant life were made," said Dr. MacDougal. 

 "These may have been of various colors, absonb- 

 ing different patterns of the spectrum. The type 

 of screen which has survived is that of leaf- 

 green or chlorophyll. The chlorophyll of the 

 plant cell absorbs radiations of certain wave- 

 lengths and the derived energy is ultimately used 

 in the formation of sugars, and other chemical 

 combinations. Transformations quickly follow, 

 which result in nitrogenous substances. These 

 products of the leaf mill are absolutely funda- 

 mental to the existence of the living world. 



' ' The formation of coal beds' was the final 

 result of this photosynthesis of bygone ages, and 

 when the accumulated remains of millions of 

 years of the activity of vegetation is used the 

 race will face the sternest necessity which it has 

 yet encountered. We may discover other coal 

 deposits, find new subterranean lakes of oil, get 

 gasoline from shales, make use of corn cobs and 

 seaweed, convert the power of our streams and 

 harness the tides, but these are but petty econo- 

 mies deferring the day when, all of these proring 

 inadequate, the major activities of the race, 

 civilization in its present movement, and indeed 

 the actual existence of man, will depend upon 

 direct use of the energy of sunlight. ' ' 



CIVILIZATION MUST FAIL UNLESS SOLAR 

 ENERGY IS UTILIZED 



Science Service 

 Our great civilization is "a most squandrous 

 and profligate one and is using the principal of 

 its legacy in numberless new ways, ' ' Dr. H. A. 

 Spoehr will declare in the forthcioming issue of 

 the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chem- 

 istry. Dr. Spoehr has been working for many 

 years at Carmel, California, in the Coastal Lab- 

 oratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 

 ton, on the question of how plants are able to 

 make use of the energy of the sun's rays, and he 

 has come to the conclusion that the solution of 



