CHAP. VII.] 



CURIOUS CRYSTALS. 



249 



grain of dust can here be easily distinguished and removed, 

 and there is a strong probability that the offal of civilization 

 is here nearly wholly wanting. It is self-evident from this 

 that I would not be disposed to neglect the first opportunity 

 for renewed investigations in the direction indicated, which 

 our involuntary rest at the drift-ice field offered. 



Immediately after the Vega lay-to, I therefore went down on 

 the ice in order to see whether here too some such metalliferous 

 dust, as I had before found north of Spitzbergen, was not to be 

 found on the surface of the ice. Nothing of the kind, however, 

 was to be seen. On the other hand. Lieutenant Nordquist 

 observed small yellow spjcks in the snow, which I asked him to 

 collect and hand oxev for investigation to Dr. Kjellman. For I 

 supposed that the specks consisted of diatom ooze. After exa- 

 mining them Dr. Kjellman however declared that they did not 

 consist of any organic substance, 

 but of crystallised grains of sand. 

 I too now examined them more 

 closely, but unfortunately not until 

 the morning after we had left the 

 ice-field, and then found that the 

 supposed ooze consisted of pale 

 yellow crystals (not fragments of 

 crystals) without mixture of foreign 

 matter. The quantity of crystals, 

 which were obtained from about 

 three litres of snow, skimmed from 

 the surface of the snow on an 

 area of at most 10 square metres, 



amounted to nearly 02 gram. The crystals were found only 

 near the surface of the snow, not in the deeper layers. 

 They were up to 1 mm. in diameter, had the appearance 

 shown in the accompan}'tng woodcut, and appeared to 

 belong to the rhombic system, as they Jiad one perfect 

 cleavage and formed striated prisms terminated at either 

 end by truncated pyramids. Unfortunately I could not make 

 any actual measurements of them, because after being kept 

 for some time in the air they weathered to a white non- 

 crystalline powder. They lay, without being sensibly dissolved, 

 for a whole night in the water formed by the nielting of the 

 snow. On being heated, too, they fell asunder into a tasteless 

 white powder. The white powder, that was formed by the 

 weathering of the crystals, was analysed after our return— 21 

 months after the discovery of the crystals — and was found to 

 contain only carbonate of lime. 



The original composition and origin of this substance appears 

 to me exceedingly enigmatical. It was not common carbonate 



FORM OF THE CRV3TAL3 



Found on the ice off the Taimur coast. 

 •Magnified thirty to forty times. 



