Feb. 2, 1882] 
NATURE 
311 
One object of Nordenskjéld’s going to Greenland was to 
discover whether dogs could be used in Spitzbergen for 
extensive sledge journeys, with the result that he found 
that they could not be employed “in long sledge journeys 
in the regions where no game was to be had.” 
Nordenskjéld had not ceased to take an interest in 
public affairs, and represented the capital of Sweden in 
the Diet for 1869 to 1871, during which he managed to 
bring about some important legislative measures for the 
better promotion of science. In the Spitzbergen Expedi- 
tion of 1872-73 Nordenskjéld spent the winter in Mussel 
Bay, the state of the ice having been in an unusually 
unfavourable condition. Among the results of the expe- 
dition Nordenskjéld mentions the following :— 
“The discovery on the Polar-ice itself of a dust of 
cosmic origin, containing metallic nickel-iron; researches 
by Dr. Kjellman on the development of algze during the 
winter night, which at Mussel Bay is four months long; 
researches on the Aurora and its spectrum by Dr. W1j- 
kander and Lieut. Parent, of the Italian Marine; re- 
searches by Dr. Wijkander on horizontal refraction in 
severe cold; a complete series of meteorological and 
magnetic observations in the most northerly latitude 
where such observations had up to this time been carried 
on ; the discovery of numerous new contributions to a 
knowledge of the flora of the Polar countries during 
former geological epochs; a sledge excursion undertaken 
under very different circumstances by Palander and 
myself, whereby the north part of North East Land was 
surveyed, and a journey, very instructive in a scientific 
point of view, made over the inland ice of North East 
Land, &c., &c.”’ 
Then, in 1875, followed the expedition to the mouths of 
the Yennissei and Obi, the first of a series which cul- 
minated in the circumnavigation of Europe and Asia, of 
which we have just had such a full and instructive 
narrative. 
Thus no one man has done half so much as Baron 
Nordenskjéld for a scientific exploration of the Arctic 
regions. The most striking characteristics of his various 
expeditions have been the small expense at which they 
were conducted, their modest but carefully-considered 
equipment, the clear and scientific methods on which they 
were planned, and the wealth and high value of the 
results obtained. In the intervals between the expedi- 
tions, Nordenskjéld was by no means idle. Not only 
was he occupied with his official duties as chief of the 
Stockholm Museum, but his researches in mineralogy, on 
the origin and constitution of meteors, on aurore, and, in 
other important departments, are of the greatest moment. 
In 1876 he took part as a commissioner in the Philadelphia 
Exhibition ; when he returned on July 1 of that year he 
stepped on board the vessel that was to take him on his 
second expedition to the Yennissei. Of his valuable in- 
vestigations on aurore and meteorites we give the first of a 
series of articles on the former subject on p. 319. 
As to the personal character of Baron Nordenskjold we 
need say little, his modesty and geniality are well-known, 
and his aversion to public display. He has in his adopted 
country risen to the highest honours, and as a well-earned 
reward for the success of his last expedition, the King of 
Sweden, his warm supporter, conferred on him the title 
_of Baron. From scientific societies all over the world he 
has received honours. He is only yet in his prime; he 
is even now preparing for another expedition to the 
shores of Siberia, and we trust he may long be spared to 
carry on the work in which it would be difficult to find a 
successor. 
THE POSSIBILITY OF FINDING WORKABLE 
COAL-SEAMS UNDER THE LONDON AREA 
N a lecture recently delivered at the London Institu- 
tion, an attempt was made to lay before a popular 
audience the course of reasoning, by which geologists 
have demonstrated that productive Coal-Measures may 
not improbably lie at no great depth beneath the metro- 
politan districts. The verification of the prediction that 
a ridge of Paleozoic rocks would be found to extend at a 
moderate depth beneath London, which has resulted from 
the borings made by Messrs. Meux and Co. in the Tot- 
tenham Court Road, and by the New River Company at 
Turnford and Ware, has renewed the interest which 
geologists have long taken in the question; and as the 
people of the metropolis now pay something like £5,000,000 
a year for the carriage of coal from a distance, it appeared 
to be not unlikely that the general public might also be 
brought to take an intelligent interest in this important 
problem. 
The discussion of the subject which has since taken 
place in the newspapers shows that such an expectation 
was not altogether unreasonable. But it must at the 
same time be confessed that some of the writers who 
have dealt with the subject have shown such a total mis - 
apprehension of the true nature of the problem, as to 
render it advisable to give in the pages of NATURE some 
explanations of the positions taken up by geologists in 
connection with the whole question. 
As long ago as the year 1826, Dr. Buckland and Mr. 
Conybeare, in describing the features of the Bristol and 
Somerset coalfield, took occasion to point out how closely 
the Coal-Measures of that district resemble those of the 
great Belgian coalfield. This resemblance can be traced 
not only in the nature and succession of the strata in the 
two coalfields, but also in their positions and relations. 
In the year 1841 MM. E. de Beaumont and Dufrénoy 
called attention to the fact that coal had been followed 
under newer beds in the North of France, and that pos- 
sibly the same ridge of old rocks with coal-strata might 
stretch right away under the south-eastern counties of 
England. 
In 1846 Sir Henry de la Beche gave much greater pre- 
cision to the suggestion, and wrote as follows :—‘ From 
the movement of the older rocks many a mass of Coal- 
Measures may be buried beneath the Oolites and Cre- 
taceous rocks on the east (of the Bristol Coalfield), 
connecting that district with those of Central England 
and Belgium, rolled about and partially denuded prior to 
the deposition of the New Red Sandstone.” 
In 1852 M. Meugy pointed out that it was by no means 
improbable that the coal basins of Belgium and Northern 
France would be found to extend right under the London 
basin. 
But it is to Mr. Godwin-Austen that we are indebted 
for the most complete and philosophical discussion of the 
whole problem. In his well-known paper read before the 
Geological Society in 1855, he showed that the Coal- 
Measures, which had been proved to thin out under the 
