“THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2125, 6 July 1907, Page 1

“THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.”

Judging by the diverse views of leading biologists, the question of tlio “beginnings’' is no whit nearer solution than ever it was. In his new book, “The Evolution of Lite,” Dr. Charlton 13astiau to some extent goes farther than in his work of last year. “The Nature and Origin of Living Matter. 1 ’ He treats of Archobiosis, or “spontaneous generation,” as it is popularly and inaccurately called not merely as one unique past event (“the beginning of life,” “creation,” or whatever else it may be named), but as constantly occurring to-day. Ho criticises Pasteur’s dismissal of it a “chimera,” and attacks the French chemist’s premises with regard to the sterilisation of the germs. By exhaustive records of experiments he shows that accepted theories with regard to the thermal death-point of bacteria, the fatal degree 9! heat, are based upon insufficient evidence. His arguments for a constant “life-giving synthetic process” are considerably strengthened. 011 the other hand, biologists having failed to prove anv case of spontaneous generation, Professor Arrhenius, the eminent Swedish physicist, is attracted by the idea that all life has had a common origin, and has spread from the single source to many worlds. The discovery of the pressure of life, he holds, has added probably to which teaches that life-germs are conveyed through interstellar space. At the railway speed of 37 miles an hour, a body would occupy 100 years in going from the earth to Mars, and 70,000 million years in traversing the distance to the nearest fixed star, but witli the pressure of radiation as motive power the journey might ho reduced to 20 days and 9000 years respectively. Even the times of travel mentioned seem long intervals for germs or spores to survive the diyness,. cold and light, llccent indications indicate, however, that some germs are proof against any cold, that the action of life is oxydation and is absent in a vacuum, and tile loss of vitality in the cold . of space would he 1000 million times less rapid than GOdeg * ~ and that dessication would be no greater in million of years than in one day at GOcleg. Hence, it may be said that interstellar space is traversed at oiiorofous sliced" by living germs that develop life on reaching favorable planets. Nevertheless, compared with Bastian’s ideas, the great professor’s theory seems unnecessarily cumbrous.