430 Obituary — Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold. 



too plainly. The affair miglit have been smoothed over, but 

 Nordenskiold refused to apologise, and was banished the country. 



As may be supposed, the viking philosopher was received with, 

 open arms by the Swedes, and after little more than a year was 

 appointed Professor and Keeper of the Mineralogical collections at the 

 Vetenskaps-Akademi in succession to Mosander. Earlier in the same 

 year (1858) he had entered on his Arctic travels by accompanying 

 Torell to Spitzbergen, and in 1861 the two geologists undertook 

 a more complete exploration of the island. Three years later 

 Nordenskiold headed an expedition, which mapped the southern 

 part of Spitzbergen, and started the great work of measuring an 

 arc of the meridian in those regions. The explorers met with some 

 shipwrecked walrus hunters, however, and were obliged to return, 

 their provisions being inadequate to maintain so large an addition 

 to the party. Nordenskiold now had higher ambitions, but money 

 was lacking, and turning for help to the rich merchants of Gothenburg 

 he initiated the long alliance with Oskar Dickson, productive of so 

 much good to Arctic exploration. The steamer Sofia, which carried 

 the winter post to Gotland, was obtained, and in 1868 Nordenskiold, 

 with the present cabinet minister. Baron F. W. von Otter, as 

 navigating officer, managed to attain the high latitude of 81 deg. 

 42 min. — a latitude previously exceeded only by Parry, who in 

 1827, going with sledges from the Hecla in the same direction, 

 reached 82° 45' N. Subsequently this attainment has been surpassed 

 more than once, as by Charles Hall, who in 1871 reached 82° 16', 

 Payer in 1874 (82° 5'), A. Markham in 1875-6 (83° 20'), Lockwood 

 of the Greely Expedition in 1884 (83° 24'), while the exploits of 

 Nansen (86° 14') and the Duke of Abruzzi, 22 miles further north, 

 will be fresh in the memory of our readers. 



In 1870 Nordenskiold set out on a short visit to Greenland to 

 ascertain if possible whether Esquimaux dogs would be suitable 

 for sledge-journeys to the pole. During his stay in Greenland he 

 made an expedition into the interior over the inland ice-sheet and 

 examined the Tertiary plant deposits at Atanekerdluk, where he 

 discovered erect bituminized tree-trunks of Tertiary age in sitH, 

 proving that they had grown upon the spot (some were 2 feet in 

 diameter), associated with beds of lignite and layers of dicotyle- 

 donous leaves. He also made important observations upon the 

 inland ice-sheet and the glaciers on the coast, and discovered the 

 great blocks of so-called meteoric iron at Ovifak, the largest of 

 which weighed about 19 tons, the next 8 tons, and the third 6 tons. 

 (See Prof. Nordenskiold's account of his voyage, Geol. Mag,, 1872, 

 Vol. IX, pp. 289, 355, 409, 449, 516, and 88.) These masses are 

 now shown to be of telluric origin and to have been ejected 

 probably in Miocene Tertiary times, with the deep-seated basaltic 

 flows through which metallic iron, of a similar character, is found 

 to be disseminated. His belief in their cosmic origin, however, was 

 fortunate in so far as it led Nordenskiold to the further study of 

 meteorites, while his observations on the surface of the Arctic 

 ice-fields led to the well-known speculations on the falling of 

 cosmic dust. 



