150 LIVING LIGHTS. 



all foreign substances, though apparently of trifling impor- 

 tance." 



The investigations of the Swedish naturalist in this field 

 are of exceeding interest. His first attempt to obtain mete- 

 oric dust was at Stockholm, where, in December, 1871, there 

 was a great fall of snow, the heaviest ever known. On the 

 last days of the storm, after the atmosphere had been pre- 

 sumably purified of extraneous substances, he collected a 

 cubic metre of snow, melted it over a fire, and found that 

 after the water had evaporated a residue of black powder 

 remained, in which were many grains of metallic iron, that 

 were attracted by a magnet. In 1872 his brother made a 

 similar examination of the snow, in a quiet locality near 

 the remote village of Evois, Finland. The snow upon 

 being melted also gave the same black powder and me- 

 tallic iron. 



The investigations of Nordenskjold himself, conducted in 

 Spitzbergen, as previously mentioned, were the most satis- 

 factory. The observations were made in 80 north latitude, 

 and 13 to 150 east longitude, in the layer of snow that 

 covered the ice. An imaginary section was as follows: 

 (1), new fallen snow ; (2), a layer of hardened old snow, 

 eight millimetres in thickness; (3), a layer of snow, con- 

 glomerated to a crystalline granular mass ; and (4), common 

 granular hardened snow. Layer three was full of small 

 black grains, among which were found numerous metallic 

 particles, that were attracted by the magnet, and found to 

 contain iron, cobalt, and possibly nickel also. 



In his visit to Greenland in 1870, Nordenskjold found in 

 the dust that lay on the inland ice, grains of metallic iron 

 and cobalt. "The main mass," he says, "consisted of a 



