Abstract
DR. MACFIE'S suggestion that life originated on the mountain summits is new, and entitled to careful consideration. If the early earth, when its atmosphere was laden with carbon dioxide and steam, had been windless, then the mountain summits would have stood like islands above a sea of hot mist, and they would have been the only situations possible for the development of life; but as any wind would have at times submerged the mountain summits beneath the lower atmosphere, they would have been subject to violent fluctuations in temperature and moisture which would have been unfavourable to primitive life. It may be doubted whether life could have appeared on the earth until later, when the temperature and the atmosphere were more similar to those which have existed throughout all the time of which there are contemporary geological records as to climate and geographical conditions.
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GREGORY, J. Where did Terrestrial Life Begin?. Nature 109, 107 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/109107b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/109107b0
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