74. Occurrence of Meteoric Iron in Greenland. 



we had lately passed, and wliich was now in sight ; the stones were 

 very hard; that small pieces were knocked off from them, and beaten 

 flat between other stones. He repeated this account two or three 

 times, so that no doubt remained of his meaning. In reply to other 

 ■ questions, we gathered from him that he had never heard of such 

 stones in South Greenland ; that the Esquimaux had said, they knew 

 of no others but these two ; that the iron breaks off from the stone 

 just in the state we saw it, and was beaten flat without being heated. 

 Our subsequent visitors confirmed the above account and added one 

 curious circumstance — that the stones are not alike, one being 

 altogether iron, and so hard and difficult to break that their supply 

 is obtained entirely from the other, which is composed principally of 

 a hard and dark rock ; and, by breaking it, they get small pieces of 

 iron out, which they beat as we see them. One of the men being 

 asked to describe the size of each of the stones, made a motion with 

 his hands, conveying the impression of a cube of two feet ; and added 

 that it would go through the skylight of the cabin, which was rather 

 larger. The hill is in about 76° 10' lat., and 64° f long. ; it is called 

 by the natives Sowilic, derived from soioic, the name for iron araongst 

 these people, as well as amongst the southern Greenlanders. Zaccheus 

 told me this word originally signified a hard black stone, of which 

 the Esquimaux made knives, before the Danes introduced iron 

 amongst them, and that iron received the same name from being 

 used for the same purpose. I suppose that the Northern Esquimaux 

 have applied it in a similar manner to the iron which they have thus 

 accidentally found. 



We are informed in the account of Captain Cook's third voyage, 

 that the inhabitants of Norton Sound, which is in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Behring's Straits, call the iron which they procure 

 from the Eussians Shawic, which is evidently the same word ; the 

 peculiar colour of these pieces of iron, their softness, and freedom 

 from rust, strengthened the probability that they were of meteoric 

 origin, which has since been proved by analysis. 



Meteoric Iron in North America. — The Northern Esquimaux lately 

 visited by Captain Eoss were observed to employ a variety of imple- 

 ments of iron, and upon inquiry being made concerning its source 

 by Captain Sabine, he ascertained that it was procured from the 

 mountains about thirty miles from the coast. The natives described 

 the existence of two large masses containing it. The one was 

 represented as nearly pure iron, and they had been unable to do 

 more than detach small fragments of it. The other, they say, was a 

 stone', of which they could break fragments, which contain small 

 globules of iron, and which they hammered out between two stones, 

 and thus formed them into flat pieces about the size of half a six- 

 pence, and which let into a bone handle, side by side, form the edges 

 of their knives. It immediately occurred to Captain Sabine that this 

 might be meteoric iron, but the subject was not further attended to 

 till specimens of the knives reached Sir Joseph Banks, by whose 

 desire Mr. Brande examined the iron, and found in it more than three 



