Abstract
IN a series of papers1 published during the last few years, W. D. Francis, assistant Government botanist in the Botanic Museum and Herbarium, Botanic Garden, Brisbane, offers theoretical reasons and experimental evidence for a connexion between iron compounds and the origin of life. In 1925, he suggested that oxidation of ferrous compounds in soils and waters, or of native or meteoric iron, could provide energy for primitive organisms in a manner analogous to that whereby the oxidation of ferrous carbonate has been shown to provide energy for Spirophyllum.
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References
Francis, W. D., Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland, 37, 98 (1926). Bot. Archiv (German translation), 15, 377 (1926). Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland, 44, 23 (1933). Also three papers privately published, 1933, 1934 and 1935.
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Iron and the Origin of Life. Nature 137, 464 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137464a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137464a0