Origin of life
Several people have suggested that the chemicals in the cell give clues as to what the early seas must have been like. In 1926, Macallum noted that the inorganic composition of the cell cytosol dramatically differs from that of modern sea water: "the cell… has endowments transmitted from a past almost as remote as the origin of life on earth". For example: "All cells contain much more potassium, phosphate, and transition metals than modern ... oceans, lakes, or rivers". "Under the anoxic, CO2-dominated primordial atmosphere, the chemistry of inland basins at geothermal fields would [be like the chemistry inside] modern cells".