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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LVI 



Both Brandt ^ and Gran ^ have recently emphasized the 

 fact that it is in the coastal waters and shallow seas, 

 which receive much drainage from the land, that plant 

 and animal life are most abundant, the more open oceans 

 far from land being relatively barren; as Schiitt puts it, 

 the pure blue of the oceans is the desert color of the seas. 

 This increased production in the coastal waters is due 

 principally to the presence of nitrogen compounds and 

 compounds of phosphorus derived from terrestrial life. 

 From forest, moor and fen, wherever water trickles, the 

 life of the land sends its infinitesimal quota of these es- 

 sential foodstuffs to fertilize the sea. 



When, however, we go back to the beginning of things, 

 we shall probably be right if we say that any influence of 

 terrestrial life upon life in the sea must be left out of 

 account. Different views are still held as to where life in 

 the world had its origin, but no one questions that it 

 began in close connection with water. That it began in 

 the sea, where the necessary elements were present in 

 appropriate concentrations and in an ionized state, is an 

 idea which appeals to many with increasing force the 

 more closely it is examined. This view has been devel- 

 oped recently by Church * in his memoir on ' * The Building 

 of an Autotrophic Flagellate," in which he boldly at- 

 tempts to trace the progression from the inorganic ele- 

 ments present in sea-water to the unicellular flagellate 

 in the plankton phase, floating freely in the water. The 

 autotrophic flagellate, manufacturing its o^vn food, he^ 

 regards as the starting-point from which all other organ- 

 isms, both plants and animals, have sprung. To under- 

 stand the first step in this progression, the passage from 

 the dead inorganic to the living organic remains, as it 

 has always been, one of the great goals of science, not of 

 biological science alone, but of all science. Recent re- 

 search has, I think, thrown much light on the fundamental 

 problems involved. In a paper published last year, Baly, 



2 Wisseifisch. Meeresunterf). Kiel, 18, 1916-20, p. 187. 



