CARBON: THE LIFE ELEMENT

IN A BOOK RECENTLY PUBLISHED in Paris on “Carbon, Combustion and Its Chemical Laws,” Henry Le Chatelier, one of the world’s greatest experts on this subject, sums up part of his recent lectures on Mineral Chemistry at the Sorbonne, which Henry de Varigny, writing in the Journal des Debats (Paris), tells us constituted a “veritable event in science,” Mr. de Varigny goes on to say:

“Is carbon a substance particularly wide-spread? Not at all. In the degree in which we evaluate the proportions of various elements in the solid earth, the ocean and the atmosphere, that of carbon is small. While oxygen, the most abundant body in nature, makes up nearly half of all matter (49.20 per cent.) and silicon 25.67 per cent., carbon makes up less than 1 per cent. The capital role in life belongs therefore to one very common element—oxygen—and to one very rare one—carbon. For carbon is the characteristic element of living matter. This is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen—one abundant element and three relatively rare ones. A boy who weighs 70 pounds has in him 44 pounds of oxygen, 12 of carbon and 6 of hydrogen. Carbon forms part of all foodstuffs— sugars, fats, meats; it enters into the composition of all living things.

“Whence comes it?   From the air; from the carbonic acid present everywhere in small proportions; with the aid of the sun’s rays, plants that include chlorophyl absorb the carbon from the carbonic acid gas, and this is the beginning of the building up of living matter and also of foodstuffs. A remarkable fact is the great attraction of carbon for other elements. No other element enters into so many combinations or such different ones. It unites with almost all the solids, metallic and non-metallic, and with oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen forms an immense series of compounds. Doubtless this flexible character is connected in some way with the very considerable part played by carbon in life.

“On the other hand, it plays a capital part in industry, being the basis of all combustion, domestic or industrial. It would be infinitely more advantageous for us to be able to manufacture carbon, a source of all kinds of energy, than to make gold. Especially is this true now, when our fossil carbon-reserves— coal and oil—are getting scarce. In these conditions, we may understand the place that Henry Le Chatelier, in his book on carbon, assigns to industrial and other combustion. And in a very different order of ideas, in considering the importance of carbonic acid in nature and the necessity of understanding its properties, we should not wonder that Mr. Le Chatelier gives a large place to researches in physical chemistry.

“In this connection, we may note that in his ‘Geochemistry’ Mr. W. Vernadsky has stated his opinion that a limitation of carbon might well entail a limitation of the quantity of life on the earth. And perhaps the quantity of living matter is thus a planetary constant. The idea is ingeniously developed.

“Carbon is decidedly one of the most interesting elements from very different view-points; it plays two parts of the first order and is worth all the attention that chemists are giving to it. Le Chatelier first of all, then biologists and geochemists.”

Source: The Literary Digest for July 16, 1927

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