Some Words About

1
The Noösphere
by Vladimir I. Vernadsky

The following article was written in December 1943. An Vladimir Ivanovich

abridged version was published in English in the American Vernadsky (1863-
Scientist, January 1945, translated by the author’s son, Dr. 1945), who developed
George Vernadsky of Yale University. The full translation the concept of the
(including portions of George Vernadsky’s translation) is pro- biosphere and how
vided here by Rachel Douglas of Executive Intelligence man’s creativity has
Review, translated from the Russian edition contained in changed it into the
Vernadsky’s book Biosfera (Moscow: Mysl Publishing House, noösphere.
1967).
Subheads have been added.

W
e are approaching the climax in the Second
World War. In Europe war was resumed in 1939
after an intermission of twenty-one years; it has
lasted five years in Western Europe, and is in its third year
in our parts, in Eastern Europe. As for the Far East, the war
was resumed there, much earlier, in 1931, and is already in
its 12th year. A war of such power, duration, and strength is
a phenomenon unparalleled in the history of mankind and
of the biosphere at large. Moreover, it was preceded by the
First World War which, although of lesser power, has a
causal connection with the present war.
In our country that First World War resulted in a new, his-
torically unprecedented, form of statehood, not only in the
realm of economics, but likewise in that of the aspirations of
nationalities. From the point of view of the naturalist (and, I
think, likewise from that of the historian), an historical phe-
nomenon of such power may and should be examined as a
part of a single great terrestrial geological process, and not
merely as a historical process.
In my own scientific work, the First World War was reflect-
ed in a most decisive way. It radically changed my geological
conception of the world. It is in the atmosphere of that war
that I have approached a conception of nature, at that time for- sion, of which I was elected president, played a noticeable
gotten and thus new for myself and for others, a geochemical role in the critical period of the First World War. Entirely unex-
and biogeochemical conception embracing both nonliving pectedly, in the midst of the war, it became clear to the
and living nature from the same point of view.2 I spent the Academy of Sciences that in Tsarist Russia there were no pre-
years of the First World War in my uninterrupted scientific cre- cise data concerning the now so-called strategic raw materi-
ative work, which I have so far continued steadily in the same als, and we had to collect and digest dispersed data rapidly to
direction. make up for the lacunae in our knowledge.3 Unfortunately by
Twenty-eight years ago, in 1915, a “Commission for the the time of the beginning of the Second World War, only the
Study of the Productive Forces” of our country, the so-called most bureaucratic part of that commission, the so-called
KEPS, was formed at the Academy of Sciences. That commis- Council of the Productive Forces, was preserved, and it

16 Spring 2005 21st CENTURY

became necessary to restore its other parts in a hurry. the material-energetic processes of a specific geological
By approaching the study of geological phenomena from a envelope of the Earth—its biosphere. Mankind cannot be
geochemical and biogeochemical point of view, we may com- physically independent of the biosphere for a single
prehend the whole of the circumambient nature in the same minute.
atomic aspect. Unconsciously, such an approach coincides for
me with what characterizes the science of the 20th Century The ‘Huygens Principle’
and distinguishes it from that of past centuries. The 20th The concept of the “biosphere,” i.e., “the domain of life,”
Century is the century of scientific atomism. was introduced in biology by Lamarck (1744-1829) in Paris at
At that time, in 1917-1918, I happened to be, entirely by the beginning of the 19th Century, and in geology by Edward
chance, in the Ukraine,4 and was unable to return to Petrograd Suess (1831-1914) in Vienna, at the end of that century.6 In our
until 1921. During all those years, wherever I resided, my century there is an absolutely new understanding of the bio-
thoughts were directed toward the geochemical and biogeo- sphere. It is emerging as a planetary phenomenon that is cos-
chemical manifestations in the circumambient nature, the mic in nature. In biogeochemistry we have to consider that life
biosphere. While observing them, I simultaneously directed (living organisms) really exists not on our planet alone, not
both my reading and my reflection toward this subject in an only in the Earth’s biosphere. It seems to me that this has been
intensive and systematic way. I expounded the conclusions established beyond a doubt, so far, for all the so-called terres-
arrived at gradually, as they were formed, through lectures and trial planets, i.e., for Venus, Earth, and Mars.7 At the
reports delivered in whatever city I happened to stay, in Yalta, Biogeochemical Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences in
Poltava, Kiev, Simferopol, Novorossiysk, Rostov, and so on. Moscow, which has been renamed the Geochemical Problems
Besides, in almost every city I stayed, I used to read everything Laboratory, in collaboration with the Microbiology Institute of
available in regard to the problem in its broadest sense. I left the Academy of Sciences (director—Corresponding
aside, as much as I could, all philosophical aspirations and Academician B.L. Isachenko), we identified cosmic life as a
tried to rest only on firmly established scientific and empiric matter for current scientific study already in 1940. This work
facts and generalizations, occasionally allowing myself to was halted because of the war, and will be resumed at the ear-
resort to working scientific hypotheses. liest opportunity.
Instead of the concept of “life,” I introduced that of “living The idea of life as a cosmic phenomenon has been found
matter,” which now seems to be firmly established in science. in the scientific archives, including our own, for a long
“Living matter” is the totality of living organisms. It is but a sci- time. Centuries ago, in the late 17th Century, the Dutch
entific empirical generalization of empirically indisputable scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), in his last work,
facts known to all, observable easily and with precision. The Cosmotheoros, which was published posthumously, for-
concept of “life” always steps outside the boundaries of the mulated this scientific question. The book was published
concept of “living matter”; it enters the realm of philosophy, in Russian twice in the first quarter of the 18th Century, on
folklore, religion, and the arts. All that is left outside the notion the initiative of Peter I. 8 In this book, Huygens established
of “living matter.” the scientific generalization that “life is a cosmic phenom-
In the thick of life today, intense and complex as it is, a enon, in some way sharply distinct from nonliving mat-
person practically forgets that he, and all of mankind, from ter.” I recently named this generalization “the Huygens
which he is inseparable, are inseparably connected with the principle.” 9
biosphere—with that specific part of the planet, where they By weight, living matter comprises a minute part of the plan-
live. It is customary to talk about man as an individual who et. This has evidently been the case throughout all geological
moves freely about our planet, and freely constructs his own time, i.e., it is geologically eternal.10 Living matter is concen-
history. Hitherto, neither historians, scientists in the humani- trated in a thin, more or less continuous layer in the tropo-
ties, nor, to a certain extent, even biologists, have con- sphere on dry land—in fields and forests—and permeates the
sciously taken into account the laws of the nature of the bios- entire ocean. In quantity, it measures no greater than tenths of
phere—the envelope of Earth, which is the only place where a percent of the biosphere by weight, on the order of close to
life can exist. Man is elementally indivisible from the bios- 0.25 percent. On dry land, its continuous mass reaches to a
phere. And this inseparability is only now beginning to depth of probably less than 3 kilometers on average. It does
become precisely clear to us. In reality, no living organism not exist outside the biosphere.
exists in a free state on Earth. All of these organisms are In the course of geological time, living matter morphologi-
inseparably and continuously connected—first and foremost cally changes, according to the laws of nature. The history of
by feeding and breathing—with their material-energetic living matter expresses itself as a slow modification of the
environment. forms of living organisms, which genetically are uninterrupt-
The outstanding Petersburg academician Caspar Wolf edly connected among themselves from generation to gener-
(1733-1794), who dedicated his whole life to Russia, ation. This idea had been rising in scientific research through
expressed this brilliantly in his book, published in German in the ages, until, in 1859, it received a solid foundation in the
St. Petersburg in 1789, the year of the French Revolution: On great achievements of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and
the Peculiar and Efficient Force, Characteristic of Plant and [Alfred R.] Wallace (1822-1913). It was cast in the doctrine of
Animal Substance. Unlike the majority of biologists of his day, the evolution of species of plants and animals, including man.
he relied upon Newton, rather than Descartes.5 The evolutionary process is a characteristic only of living mat-
Mankind, as living matter, is inseparably connected with ter. There are no manifestations of it in the nonliving matter of

21st CENTURY Spring 2005 17

 biologist as well) expounded, even prior to
1859, the empirical generalization that the
evolution of living matter is proceeding in a
definite direction. This phenomenon was
called by Dana “cephalization,” and by Le
Conte the “Psychozoic era.” Dana, like
Darwin, adopted this idea at the time of his
journey around the world, which he started in
1838, two years after Darwin’s return to
London, and which lasted until 1842.14
It should be noted here that the expedition
during which Dana reached his conclusions
about cephalization, coral reefs, and so on,
was historically associated with the research-
es on the Pacific Ocean, done on ocean voy-
ages by Russian sailors, notably Kruzenshtern
(1770-1846). Published in German, they
inspired the American lawyer John Reynolds
University of California, Berkeley, U.S. Geological Survey
The Blue and Gold Yearbook, 1896
to organize the first such American scientific
sea voyage.15 He began to work towards this
The American geologist Joseph Le Conte (1823-1901), at left, developed the in 1827, when an account of Kruzenshtern’s
idea that living matter was evolving in a definite direction, which he called expedition came out in German. Only in
the Psychozoic era. James Dwight Dana (1813-1895), a geologist, 1838, 11 years later, did his persistent efforts
mineralogist, and biologist, developed a similar idea, which he called result in this expedition taking place. This
cephalization. Dana was a member of the Wilkes Expedition. was the Wilkes expedition, which conclu-
sively proved the existence of Antarctica.
our planet. In the Cryptozoic era, the same minerals and Empiric notions of a definite direction of the evolutionary
rocks were being formed which are being formed now.11 The process, without, however, any attempt theoretically to
only exceptions are the bio-inert natural bodies connected in ground them, go deeper into the 18th Century. Buffon
one way or another with living matter.12 (1707-1788) spoke of the “realm of man,” because of the
The change in the morphological structure of living matter, geological importance of man. The idea of evolution was
observed in the process of evolution, unavoidably leads to a alien to him. It was likewise alien to Agassiz (1807-1873),
change in its chemical composition. This question now who introduced the idea of the glacial period into science.
requires experimental verification. In collaboration with the Agassiz lived in a period of an impetuous blossoming of
Paleontology Institute of the Academy of Sciences, we includ- geology. He admitted that, geologically, the realm of man
ed this problem in our planned work in 1944. had come, but, because of his theological tenets, opposed
While the quantity of living matter is negligible in relation the theory of evolution. Le Conte points out that Dana, for-
to the nonliving and bio-inert mass of the biosphere, the bio- merly having a point of view close to that of Agassiz, in the
genic rocks constitute a large part of its mass, and go far last years of his life accepted the idea of evolution in its
beyond the boundaries of the biosphere. Subject to the phe- then-usual Darwinian interpretation. 16 The difference
nomena of metamorphism, they are converted, losing all between Le Conte’s “Psychozoic era” and Dana’s “cephal-
traces of life, into the granitic envelope, and are no longer ization” thus disappeared. It is to be regretted that, espe-
part of the biosphere. The granitic envelope of the Earth is cially in our country, this important empirical generalization
the area of former biospheres. 13 In Lamarck’s book, still remains outside the horizon of our biologists.
Hydrogeologie (1802), containing many remarkable ideas, The soundness of Dana’s principle, which happens to be
living matter, as I understand it, was revealed as the creator outside the horizon of our paleontologists, may easily be ver-
of the main rocks of our planet. Lamarck never accepted ified by anyone willing to do so on the basis of any modern
Lavoisier’s (1743-1794) discovery. But that other great treatise on paleontology. The principle not only embraces the
chemist, J.B. Dumas (1800-1884), Lamarck’s younger con- whole animal kingdom, but likewise reveals itself clearly in
temporary, who did accept Lavoisier’s discovery, and who individual types of animals. Dana pointed out that in the
intensively studied the chemistry of living matter, likewise course of geological time, at least 2 billion years and proba-
adhered for a long time to the notion of the quantitative bly much more, there occurs an irregular process of growth
importance of living matter in the structure of the rocks of the and perfection of the central nervous system, beginning
biosphere. with the crustacea (whose study Dana used to establish his
principle), the mollusca (cephalopoda), and ending with
Cephalization—the Arrow of Evolution man. It is this phenomenon he called cephalization. The
The younger contemporaries of Darwin, J[ames] D[wight] brain, which has once achieved a certain level in the process of
Dana (1813-1895) and J[oseph] Le Conte (1823-1901), both evolution, is not subject to retrogression, but only can progress
great American geologists (and Dana, a mineralogist and further.

18 Spring 2005 21st CENTURY

 The Noösphere Comes of Age destruction, an immense future is open
Proceeding from the notion of the before him in the geological history of
geological role of man, the geologist the biosphere.
A.P. Pavlov (1854-1929) in the last The geological evolutionary process
years of his life used to speak of the shows the biological unity and equality
anthropogenic era, in which we now of all men, Homo sapiens and his ances-
live. While he did not take into the tors, Sinanthropus and others; their prog-
account the possibility of the destruc- eny in the mixed white, red, yellow, and
tion of spiritual and material values we black races evolves ceaselessly in innu-
now witness in the barbaric invasion of merable generations.17 This is a law of
the Germans and their allies, slightly nature. All the races are able to inter-
more than 10 years after his death, he breed and produce fertile offspring. In a
rightfully emphasized that man, under historical contest, as for instance in a
our very eyes, is becoming a mighty war of such magnitude as the present
and ever-growing geological force. This one, he finally wins who follows that
geological force was formed quite law. One cannot oppose with impunity
imperceptibly over a long period of the principle of the unity of all men as a
Portrait by Jean Louis Rodolphe, 1866,
time. A change in man’s position on our law of nature. I use here the phrase “law
planet (his material position first of all) courtesy of University of Oklahoma Libraries, of nature” as this terms is used more and
coincided with it. In the 20th Century, History of Science Collections more in the physical and chemical sci-
man, for the first time in the history of Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), introduced ences, in the sense of an empirical gen-
the Earth, knew and embraced the the idea of the glacial period into science. eralization established with precision.
whole biosphere, completed the geo- The historical process is being radical-
graphic map of the planet Earth, and colonized its whole sur- ly changed under our very eyes. For the first time in the histo-
face. Mankind became a single totality in the life of the Earth. ry of mankind the interests of the masses on the one hand, and
There is no spot on Earth where man can not live if he so the free thought of individuals on the other, determine the
desires. Our people’s sojourn on the floating ice of the North course of life of mankind and provide standards for mere ideas
Pole in 1937-1938 has proved this clearly. At the same time, of justice. Mankind taken as a whole is becoming a mighty
owing to the mighty techniques and geological force. There arises the
successes of scientific thought, problem of the reconstruction of the
radio and television, man is able to biosphere in the interests of freely
speak instantly to anyone he wishes thinking humanity as a single totali-
at any point on our planet. ty. This new state of the biosphere,
Transportation by air has reached a which we approach without our
speed of several hundred kilome- noticing, is the noösphere.
ters per hour, and has not reached In my lecture at the Sorbonne in
its maximum. All this is the result of Paris in 1922-1923, I accepted
“cephalization,” the growth of biogeochemical phenomena as the
man’s brain and the work directed basis of the biosphere. The con-
by his brain. tents of part of these lectures were
The economist, L. Brentano, illu- published in my book, Studies in
minated the planetary significance Geochemistry, which appeared
of this phenomenon with the fol- first in French, in 1924, and then in
lowing striking computation: If a a Russian translation, in 1927.18
square meter were assigned to The French mathematician Le Roy,
each man, and if all men were put a Bergsonian philosopher, accept-
close to one another, they would ed the biogeochemical foundation
not occupy the area of even the of the biosphere as a starting point,
small Lake of Constance between and in his lectures at the Collège
the borders of Bavaria and de France in Paris, introduced in
Switzerland. The remainder of the 1927 the concept of the noösphere
Earth’s surface would remain as the stage through which the
empty of man. Thus the whole of biosphere is now passing geologi-
mankind put together represents an cally.19 He emphasized that he
insignificant mass of the planet’s NOAA Central Library arrived at such a notion in collab-
matter. Its strength is derived not Captain Charles Wilkes, headed the U.S. oration with his friend Teilhard de
from its matter, but from its brain. If Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, which Chardin, a great geologist and
man understands this, and does not discovered the Magnetic South Pole and paleontologist, now working in
use his brain and his work for self- determined that Antarctica was a continent. China.

21st CENTURY Spring 2005 19

 The noösphere is a new geological every step the empirical results of that
phenomenon on our planet. In it, for the “incomprehensible” process. That min-
first time, man becomes a large-scale geo- eralogical rarity, native iron, is now
logical force. He can, and must, rebuild being produced by the billions of tons.
the province of his life by his work and Native aluminum, which never before
thought, rebuild it radically in compari- existed on our planet, is now produced
son with the past. Wider and wider cre- in any quantity. The same is true with
ative possibilities open before him. It may regard to the countless number of artifi-
be that the generation of our grandchil- cial chemical combinations (biogenic
dren will approach their blossoming. “cultural” minerals) newly created on
our planet. The number of such artificial
How Can Thought Change minerals is constantly increasing. All of
Material Processes? the strategic raw materials belong here.
Here a new riddle has arisen before Chemically, the face of our planet, the
us. Thought is not a form of energy. How biosphere, is being sharply changed by
then can it change material processes? man, consciously, and even more so,
That question has not as yet been solved. Russian Academy of Sciences unconsciously. The aerial envelope of
As far as I know, it was first posed by an The Russian scientist Aleksei Petrovich the land as well as all its natural waters
American scientist born in Lvov, the Pavlov (1854-1929), emphasized that are changed both physically and chemi-
mathematician and biophysicist Alfred man was becoming a “mighty and cally by man. In the 20th Century, as a
Lotka.20 But he was unable to solve it. As ever-growing geological force.” result of the growth of human civiliza-
Goethe (1740-1832), not only a great tion, the seas and the parts of the oceans
poet but a great scientist as well, once rightly remarked, in sci- closest to shore become changed more and more markedly.
ence we only can know how something occurred, but we can- Man now must take more and more measures to preserve for
not know why it occurred. future generations the wealth of the seas, which so far have
As for the coming of the noösphere, we see around us at belonged to nobody. Besides this, new species and races of

LARGEST MINERAL AND OIL-AND-GAS DEPOSITS OF RUSSIA

The Vernadsky State Geological Museum, Russian Academy of Sciences, has created
this map of Russia’s resources—to be developed in the interest of mankind: the
noösphere.
Source: After Yu. Gatinsky, N. Vishnevskaya, Vernadsky SGMRAS

20 Spring 2005 21st CENTURY

 to the cause.
6. On the biosphere, see W. Vernadsky, Ocherki geokhimii, 4th edition,
animals and plants are being created by man. Fairy tale
Moscow-Leningrad, Index; Biosfera (The Biosphere), Leningrad, 1926:
dreams appear possible in the future; man is striving to
emerge beyond the boundaries of his planet into cosmic French edition. Paris, 1929.
space. And he probably will do so. 7. See my article on “The Geological Envelopes of the Earth as a Planet,”

Series, 1942, p. 251. Cf. H. Spenser Jones, Life on Other Worlds, New
At present we cannot afford not to realize that, in the great Izvestiia of the Academy of Sciences. Geographical and Geophysical
historical tragedy through which we live, we have elemental- York, 1940; R. Wildt in Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 81 (1939), p. 135. A
Russian translation of Wildt’s study, regrettably not in full (which is not
indicated in the paper) appeared in the Astronomicheskii Zhurnal, Vol.
ly chosen the right path leading into the noösphere. I say ele-
XVII (1940), No. 5, p. 81ff. By now, a new study by Wildt has appeared,
mentally, as the whole history of mankind is proceeding in this
direction. The historians and political leaders only begin to Geochemistry and the Atmosphere of Planets (1941), but, to our regret,
approach a comprehension of the phenomena of nature from no copy of it has so far reached us.
8. It would deserve a new edition in modern Russian, with commentaries.
9. See Ocherki geokhimii, pp. 9, 288, and my book Problemy biogeokhimii
this point of view. The approach of Winston Churchill (1932)
(The Problems of Biogeochemistry) III (in press).
to the problem, from the angle of a historian and political
leader, is very interesting.21 10. Problemy biogeokhimii, III.
The noösphere is the last of many stages in the evolution of 11. In accordance with modern American geologists as, for example,
Charles Schuchert (Schuchert and Dunbar, A Textbook of Geology, II,
New York, 1941, p. 88ff.), I call the Cryptozoic era that period which for-
the biosphere in geological history. The course of this evolution
only begins to become clear to us through a study of some of merly had been called the Azoic, or the Arcaeozoic, era. In the
the aspects of the biosphere’s geological past. Let me cite a few Cryptozoic era the morphological preservation of the remnants of
organisms dwindles almost to nothing, but the existence of life is
revealed in the organogenic rocks, the origins of which arouse no
examples, Five hundred million years ago, in the Cambrian geo-
logical era, skeletal formations of animals, rich in calcium, doubts.
appeared for the first time in the biosphere; those of plants 12. On the bio-inert bodies see W.I. Vernadsky, Problems of Biogeochemistry,
II, Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts Sci., Vol. 35 (1944), pp. 493-494. Such are, for
example, the soil, the ocean, the overwhelming majority of terrestrial
appeared over 2 billion years ago. That calcium function of liv-
ing matter, now powerfully developed, was one of the most waters, the troposphere, and so on.
important evolutionary factors in the geological change of the 13. See my basic work referred to in Note 1.
biosphere.22 A no less important change in the biosphere 14. See D. Gilman. The Life of J. D. Dana, New York, 1899. The chapter on
the oceanic expedition in this book was written by Le Conte. Le Conte’s
book, Evolution (1888), has not been accessible to me. His autobiography
occurred from 70 to 110 million years ago, at the time of the
Cretaceous system, and especially during the Tertiary. It was in was published in 1903: W. Armes, Editor, The Autobiography of Joseph
Le Conte. For his biography and bibliography see H. Fairchild in Bull.
Geol. Soc. Amer. 26 (1915), p. 53.
that epoch that our green forests, which we cherish so much,
15. On Reynolds, see the Index in “Centenary Celebration: Wilkes
were formed for the first time. This is another great evolutionary
stadium, analogous to the noösphere. It was probably in these Exploring Expedition of the U.S. Navy, 1838-1842,” Proc. Amer.
forests that man appeared around 15 or 20 million years ago. Philos. Soc., 82, No. 5 (1940). It is to be regretted that our expeditions
in the Pacific, so active in the first half of the 19th Century, were later
discontinued for a long time (almost until the Revolution), following the
Now we live in the period of a new geological evolutionary
change in the biosphere. We are entering the noösphere. This death of both Emperor Alexander I (1777-1825) and Count N. P.
Rumiantsov (1754-1826)—that remarkable leader of Russian culture
who equipped the “Riurik” expedition (1815-1818) out of his private
new elemental geological process is taking place at a stormy
funds.
time, in the epoch of a destructive world war. But the impor-
tant fact is that our democratic ideals are in tune with the ele- In the Soviet period K. M. Deriugin’s (1878-1936) expedition should be
mentioned; its precious and scientifically important materials have been
so far only partly studied and remain unpublished. Such an attitude toward
mental geological processes, with the law of nature, and with
the noösphere. Therefore we may face the future with confi- scientific work is inadmissible. The Zoological Museum of the Academy of
dence. It is in our hands. We will not let it go. Sciences must fulfill this scientific and civic duty.
16. D. Gilman, op.cit., p. 255.
17. I and my contemporaries have imperceptibly lived through a drastic
Notes _____________________________________________________________
1. The word “noösphere” is composed from the Greek terms noos, mind, and
sphere, the last used in the sense of an envelope of the Earth. I treat the change in the comprehension of the circumambient world. In the time of
problem of the noösphere in more detail in the third part of my book, now my youth it seemed both to me and to others that man had lived through
being prepared for publication, on The Chemical Structure of the a historical time only, within the span of a few thousand years, at best a
few tens of thousands of years. Now we know that man has been con-
sciously living through tens of millions of years. He consciously lived
Biosphere of the Earth As a Planet, and Its Surroundings.
2. It should be noted that in this connection I came upon the forgotten
through the glacial period in both Eurasia and North America, through the
thoughts of that original Bavarian chemist, C. Schoenbein (1799-
formation of Eastern Himalaya, and so on. The division of historical and
1868) and of his friend, the English physicist of genius, M. Faraday
geological time is levelled out for us.
(1791-1867). As early as the beginning of the 1840s, Schoenbein
attempted to prove that a new division should be created in geology— 18. The last revised edition of my Ocherki Geokhimii (Problems of
geochemistry, as he called it. See W. Vernadsky, Ocherki geokhimii Geochemistry) appeared in 1934. In 1926, the Russian edition of
(Studies in Geochemistry), 4th edition, Moscow-Leningrad, 1934, pp. Biosfera (The Biosphere) came out, and in 1929 its French edition. My
14, 290. Biogeokhimicheskie Ocherki (Biogeochemical Studies) was published in
1940. The publication of Problemy biogeokhimii (Problems of
3. On the significance of KEPS see A. E. Fersman, Voina i strategich-
Biogeochemistry) was begun in 1940. (A condensed English translation of
eskoe syrie (The War and Strategic Raw Materials), Krasnoufimsk,
Part II appeared, under the editorship of G. E. Hutchinson, in Trans. Conn.
1941, p. 48.
Acad Arts Sci., Vol. 35, in 1944.) Part III is in press. Ocherki geokhimii was
4. See my article, “Out of my Recollections: The First Year of the translated into German and Japanese.
Ukrainian Academy of Sciences,” to appear in the Jubilee volume of 19. Le Roy’s lectures were at once published in French: L’exigence idealiste
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in commemoration of its 25th et le fait d’evolution, Paris, 1927, p. 196.
anniversary.
20. A. Lotka, Elements of Physical Biology, Baltimore, 1925, p. 405 ff.
5. It is to be regretted that the manuscripts left after Wolf’s death have been,
as yet, neither studied nor published. In 1927, the Commission on the 21. W.S. Churchill, Amid These Storms: Thoughts and Adventures, New York,
History of Knowledge at the Academy of Sciences decided to do this work, 1932, p. 274 ff. I plan to return to this problem elsewhere.
but it could not be accomplished because of the constant changes in the 22. I deal with the problem of the biogeochemical functions of organisms in
Academy’s approach toward the study of the history of science. Now that the second part of my book, The Chemical Structure of the Biosphere.
work at the Academy has been reduced to a minimum, which is harmful (see Note 1).

21st CENTURY Spring 2005 21