534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



latter was only lieutenant, were elected members of the Swedish Acad- 

 emy of Sciences when it was founded in 1739. Carl Frederik is the 

 common ancestor of the families bearing the name of Nordenskiold 

 now living in Sweden and Finland. One of his many remarkable sons, 

 the third in order, Colonel Adolf Gustaf Nordenskiold, became owner 

 of Frugord, in Finland. This property, situated in a forest-crowned 

 valley in the department of Nyland, is still in the possession of the 

 Nordenskiolds. Here Colonel Adolf Gustaf Nordenskiold built a 

 peculiar residence, the middle of which is taken up with a hall two 

 stories high, round the upper part of which runs a broad gallery, in 

 which collections in natural history are arranged. His youngest son, 

 Nils Gustaf, was born in 1792. After passing his examination in min- 

 ing at the University of Upsala, he was for several years the pupil of 

 Berzelius, with whom he formed the warmest friendship, which was 

 only broken off by death. Nils Gustaf, early known as a distinguished 

 mineralogist, was appointed a government inspector of mines in his 

 native country, and, by means of liberal grants of public money, was 

 enabled to undertake extensive foreign tours, which brought him into 

 communication with most of the eminent mineralogists and chemists 

 of the day in England, France, and Germany. After three years of 

 foreign travel he returned to Finland, and was promoted in 1824 to 

 be chief of the mining department, and devoted thirty years of restless 

 activity to the improvement of that important branch of the industry 

 of his native land. He traveled through Finland in all directions, in 

 the prosecution of his untiring mineralogical and geological researches. 

 His travels extended as far as the Ural. He published his views, dis- 

 coveries, and experiments in many scientific periodicals and in several 

 independent works, and a large number of minerals discovered by him 

 afford evidence of his keen research. He was made Councilor of 

 State, and obtained many distinctions for his scientific services from 

 the sovereign and from learned bodies. On February 21, 1866, he 

 ended his active life." 



Adolf Eric Nordenskiold, the son of this Nils Gustaf, chief of 

 the mining department of Finland, and of his wife Margaretta Sofia von 

 Haartman, was born at Helsingfors, Finland, November 18, 1832, the 

 third in order of seven children. In his boyhood he was an industri- 

 ous collector of insects and minerals, and was permitted to accompany 

 his father in mineralogical excursions. Under the guidance of his 

 father, who, a pupil of Gahn and Berzelius, was an expert in those 

 matters, he acquired a skill in recognizing and collecting minerals 

 which proved of great service to him in the path of life he afterward 

 followed, and in the use of the blowpipe. He subsequently undertook 

 the charge of the rich mineral collection of Frugord, and made vaca- 

 tion tours, which were of great benefit to him. He studied for some 

 time with a private tutor, and was then sent to the gymnasium at 

 Borgo, where, according to his own accounts, he enjoyed an almost 



