904 



SCIENCE 



LN. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 730 



air, condensing it within the pores and 

 crevices; but because of its activity in this 

 condensed form, the oxygen soon unites 

 with the substance of the coal and passes 

 on to chemical union, making room for the 

 absorption of more oxygen from the air. 



Pursuing the phenomena of charcoal 

 further by way of illustration, the well- 

 known fact may be recalled that a layer of 

 charcoal spread over decaying organic mat- 

 ter permits it to waste away gradually 

 without giving off offensive odors, owing to 

 the fact that the gases and the volatile 

 products of the decomposition coming in 

 contact with the charcoal are drawn into its 

 pores and there oxidized by the condensed 

 oxygen which the charcoal has absorbed 

 from the air. Owing perhaps to a sort of 

 catalytic action, the oxygen condensed in 

 the pores of the charcoal becomes more 

 active than the ordinary oxygen of the air. 

 While charcoal furnishes the most declared 

 case, soils and comminuted earth matter are 

 known to possess similar properties in a 

 notable degree. 



In summation, we conclude that the 

 porous mantle of the earth thus supplied 

 by planetesimal in fall with unstable car- 

 bides, nitrides, phosphides and sulphides 

 undergoing transformation into more stable 

 compounds, and generating during this 

 process hydrocarbons, ammonia, hydrogen 

 phosphide and hydrogen sulphide gases 

 mingled with the ordinary gases carried 

 by the planetesimals, furnished rather re- 

 markable conditions for interactions and 

 combinations, among which unusual syn- 

 theses would not be improbable. 



If, with these special possibilities in 

 mind, we turn to the question, what physio- 

 graphic situation on the surface of the 

 early earth presented the most favorable 

 conditions for the organic synthesis, three 

 general views offer themselves as alterna- 

 tives, and under one of these there is a 



localization so specific as to have the force 

 of a fourth view. The primitive organic 

 synthesis may have taken place (1) in the 

 ocean, (2) in some body of fresh water, 

 or (3) on the land, or, more specifically, 

 (4) in the soil. By soil in this connection 

 is meant merely the earthy mantle of com- 

 minuted and weathered material; the ab- 

 sence of organic matter at the outset is of 

 course assumed. 



May we not take it for granted that the 

 higher presumption will lie in favor of that 

 localization which brings into closest inter- 

 action the requisite material in unstable 

 states, attended by the maximum range 

 of concentrations, condensations, catalytic, 

 electrical, nascent and other favoring con- 

 ditions 1 



If planetesimals carrying the essential 

 constituents in unstable forms fell into 

 large and deep bodies of water, the soluble 

 and gaseous products of such reactions as 

 followed would have been likely to be 

 widely diffused and diluted, would have 

 received little aid from the catalytic action 

 of rock or earth material, would have been 

 unassisted by soil porosity, and would have 

 been but little favored by concentrations 

 except such as involved an increase of 

 density of all the constituents held in the 

 water body whether favorable, hostile or 

 indifferent in nature. Organic synthesis 

 at present clearly involves a series of very 

 special selections of material from among a 

 miscellaneous association, the larger part of 

 which is either neutrally obstructive or 

 hostile. In the case of a completed organ- 

 ism, provided with the proper selective ap- 

 pliances, the requisite material may be 

 gathered from such a dilute intermixture 

 of the essential and non-essential materials 

 as the water-bodies present, but until these 

 selective appliances are provided, the water- 

 bodies seem to us to be deficient in some of 

 the most propitious conditions. 



