DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE, 



597 



from ocean to ocean, unscathed and 

 without the loss of a single man. It 

 was by readiness and prompt decision 

 that he steered the Sofia to what, but 

 for the Englishman, Parry, had then 

 been the farthest north, and that on 

 another voyage he burst the icy barrier 

 of southeastern Greenland, which had 

 defied assault for three hundred years. 



These expeditions to Greenland were 

 inspired largely by his desire to see 

 the remains of the ancient Qsterby, the 

 settlement of the Norsemen, an in- 

 spiration as much sentimental as scien- 

 tific. On the other hand, his early voy- 

 ages to Siberian waters, though not 

 unfruitful of scientific results, were as 

 grossly commercial as those of his fel- 

 low-pioneers, Captains Carlsen and 

 Wiggins. But mere trade would not 

 have taken Nordenskiold to the mouth 

 of the Yennissei, and we believe that in 

 the night-watches there ever loomed 

 before him the shadow of Tchelyuskin, 

 the cape that he would be the first to 

 double. 



As keeper of the minerals in the 

 State Museum at Stockholm, Norden- 

 skiold had to deal with objects that 

 may be thought petty in comparison 

 with his famous exploits. But the pro- 

 fessor was a poet, always seeing the 

 greater in the less, and thus it was that 

 the dust falling on Arctic snows through 

 the long night was for him a message 

 from other worlds than ours, a sug- 

 gestion of some primeval harbinger 

 that brought to a cooling planet the 

 germ of all life. So, too, a prolonged 

 study of cracks in granite, to which his 

 attention was first directed on Spitz- 

 bergen, led him, by a process of reason- 

 ing too complicated for repetition here, 

 to the belief that tliey must penetrate 

 to a depth of thirty to forty meters 

 below sea-level and no further, since 

 there they would meet with a system 

 of horizontal cracks. Water would 

 sink through the first set of cracks to 

 that depth, and there would form a 

 constant source of supply. The theory 

 was proved correct by the diamond 



drill, and from it wider consequences 

 of geological import inevitably result. 

 But the practical benefits, especially in 

 the large granitic areas of Sweden 

 and Finland, are no less, and at Nor- 

 denskiold's instigation large numbers 

 of bore-holes have now been sunk, light- 

 houses on seagirt rocks furnished with 

 a never-failing spring, and factories 

 supplied with pure water previously 

 obtainable only at great expense. 

 'Nordenskiold's wells' will soon be 

 household words, and they who under- 

 stand neither mathematics nor geology 

 know at least that like the prophet of 

 old he has brought forth water from 

 the stony rock. 



But it is not my purpose to discuss 

 the scientific labors of Nordenskiold, 

 so much as to illustrate his personality. 

 Stern and reserved in appearance, he 

 was often so in reality, but this arose 

 rather from his abstraction in deep 

 problems than from any aloofness of 

 nature. He was not high-minded, how- 

 ever proud his looks, and could unbend 

 without a trace of condescension. He 

 was not a good speaker, but he was an 

 inveterate one, and, as we have seen, 

 his freedom of youthful speech cost 

 him his post and his native land. On 

 the triumphal homeward voyage of the 

 Vega, there were banquets at every 

 port of call, and Nordenskiold, who of 

 course spoke, employed always the lan- 

 guage of the country. It was his cus- 

 tom. Even in Japan, after a few 

 weeks' stay, he replied to the toast of 

 his health in Japanese. The speech was 

 not reported. 



Wherever he went he collected ob- 

 jects of interest, and the collection he 

 made in Japan was characteristic. He 

 bought up all the books and manu- 

 scripts he could lay hands on, and so 

 it is that there now exists in the Royal 

 Library at Stockholm perhaps the 

 finest collection of Japanese literature 

 in Europe. The catalogue by Professor 

 Rosny, of Paris, is well known to 

 Orientalists. 



Nordenskiold was also a voluminous 



