Background

"In the August 1881 issue of the New York magazine Science there is a long overlooked article entitled "Mr. Darwin on Dr. Hahn's Discovery of Fossil Organisms in Meteorites." Science was founded the preceding year by journalist John Michels with financial backing of Thomas Edison. Struggling to find a place in the popular science market, the illustrated weekly magazine was only published until March 1882. The current journal of the same name is a later incarnation. The article contains some extraordinary quotations from a lost Darwin letter or letters and, even more surprisingly, spoken words attributed to Darwin upon viewing meteorite specimens. The passage reads:

Not content with the mere presentation of his work, Dr. Hahn visited the veteran zoologist and brought his preparations to him for inspection.

No sooner had Mr. Darwin peered through the microscope on one of the finest specimens when he started up from his seat and exclaimed:

'Almighty God! What a wonderful discovery! Wonderful!'

And after a pause of silent reflection he added: 'Now reaches life down!'

The latter remark no doubt refers to the proof furnished by Dr. Hahn's discovery that organisms can reach our planet from celestial space. It is an acknowledgment of the relief Mr. Darwin must have felt in not being forced to a belief in a primeval 'generatio equivoca'.

Could this be true? Did Darwin really leap out of his chair? Did he believe life on Earth came from outer space?"

Source and more information about Hahn:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A690&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

Timeline of Publications Pertaining to the Organic Origin Theory of the Chondrites

1834 - On Meteor-Stones by Jacob Berzelius
1858 - About the Components of the Meteor-Stone from Kaba in Hungary by Friedrich Wöhler
1862 - The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds by Camille Flammarion
1863 - A Description and Classification of Meteorites based on the Collection in the Mineralogical Museum of Berlin by Gustav Rose
1865 - On Darwinian Teachings by Hermann Eberhard Richter
1872 - About Bacteria by Ferdinand Cohn
1875 - On the Nature of the Stone Meteorites from the Fall of February 12, 1875 in Iowa County North America by Carl von Gümbel
1878 - About the Stone Meteorites Found in Bavaria by Carl von Gümbel
1879 - The Primordial Cell by Otto Hahn
1880 - The Meteorite (Chondrite) and its Organisms by Otto Hahn
1881 - Corals in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1881 - About the "Organisms of the Meteorite" by Anton Rzehak
1881 - More About the Animal Remains in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1881 - Yet Again the "Organisms of the Meteorite" by Anton Rzehak
1881 - The Meteorite and its Organisms by Hermann Karsten
1882 - About the Animal Remains Discovered in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1882 - The Alleged Organisms of the Meteorites by Carl Vogt
1906 - Worlds in the Making by Svante Arrhenius
1916 - The Nummulosphere. Part 3: The Ocean Floor or Benthoplankton by Randolph Kirkpatrick
1920 - On Chondrules and Chondritic Structure in Meteorites by George P. Merrill

Arrhenius and Merrill make no mention of the organic theory in 1906 and 1920, suggesting that the works of Hahn/Karsten/Weinland were ignored by this time in the accepted literature on the chondrites.

These works and others can be found fully transcribed online at:

Archive.org --- Solar Anamnesis' Meteorites List.

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The Historical Debate on the Chondrites, edited by Solar Anamnesis

Additionally, the following titles have been translated into a collection and can be viewed at The Historical Debate on the Chondrites, edited by Solar Anamnesis --- Archive.org.

1880 - The Meteorite (Chondrite) and its Organisms by Otto Hahn
1881 - Corals in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1881 - About the "Organisms of the Meteorite" by Anton Rzehak
1881 - More About the Animal Remains in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1881 - Yet Again the "Organisms of the Meteorite" by Anton Rzehak
1881 - The Meteorite and its Organisms by Hermann Karsten
1882 - About the Animal Remains Discovered in the Meteorites by David F. Weinland
1882 - The Alleged Organisms of the Meteorites by Carl Vogt

To view all the figures online via a Flickr album: Otto Hahn's Flickr Album