520 Prof. Nordenskidld — Exjjedition to Greenland. 



locality.^ The greatest part of the stone mass into which the iron 

 particles are scattered is, however, very unlike genuine basalt, and in 

 external appearance rather resembles the meteoric stone from 

 Tanacera Pass, in Chili. Time has not yet permitted a more ac- 

 curate investigation. 



Or, (2) that the whole fall of meteoric iron took place during the 

 period when the piling up of these Greenland basalt rocks was in 

 progress, i.e. during the latter portion of the Cretaceous and the begin- 

 ning of the Tertiary periods. Some of the pieces of meteoric iron 

 have fallen to iron-dust, and filled cracks in the basalt, where they 

 have again hardened into the iron above described as found in the 

 ridge fg. Of similar origin are also the particles of native iron 

 in the basalt lying nearest the iron, which occasionally has a conglo- 

 merate-like structure. 



As considerable masses of iron, of a composition probably very 

 similar to that of meteoric iron, without a doubt occur in the interior 

 of the earth, it may be suggested that the Ovifak iron may be of 

 telluric origin, and that it has been, together with the plutonic rocks, 

 thrown up during the eruptions that have given rise to the vast 

 strata of basalt in this neighbourhood. But not only does the fully 

 marked meteoritic form of the many iron pieces militate against this 

 supposition, but also the circumstance that the iron in question — as 

 the facts of its containing organic matter, its porosity etc., show— 

 lias evidently never been heated even to a temperature of a few hundred 

 degrees. 



Neither is it possible that these masses of iron can have arisen 

 from the reduction by gases developed in connexion with basalt 

 eruptions of a ferruginous mineral. Iron pyrites cannot be reduced 

 by these means, while no oxide-of-iron-mineral containing nickel, 

 a,nd at the same time almost free from lime and silica, is known. 

 The formation of the iron from chloride of iron, which had been 

 erupted from the interior of the earth and since been reduced, 

 can hardly be supposed. The explanation I have given above, that 

 the iron is the result of an unusually rich Miocene fall of meteoric 

 iron, seems, therefore, to me most plausible. 



Oberg also was fortunate enough to meet with a piece of me- 

 teoric iron from the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn. He received 

 the piece, which weighed 7|- Skalpund (Tib Avoird.), from Dr. 

 Pfafif, of Jakobshavn. This piece, which is now preserved in the 

 Eiks Museum at Stockholm, is an oval lump, with a somewhat 

 rough surface, consisting principally of very hard, tough, not 

 crumbling iron. On being sawn through, it presented the appearance 

 of a mass of iron grains welded together, here and there impregnated 

 with a basalt-like black silicate. On etching, fine Widmanstattian 

 figures are obtained. We have not had time to analyse it, and I need 

 not therefore dwell longer on the description of it, especially if, as 

 is greatly to be wished,* the three larger iron blocks left at Ovifak 



^ Only the basalt in some parts' of the ridge fg and gh, but not the basalt from 

 other districts of Disko and N oursoak, does contain native iron. 

 2 As I have above mentioned, the Swedish Government sent for this purpose 



