82 MASKELYNE. — MINERALOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



connexion with the meteoric matter that reaches the earth from 

 space. It has been asserted that snow when collected under 

 conditions that seemed, by the remoteness of the locality from 

 human habitations, to be secure fi-om contaminations due to the 

 agency of man, has, when melted, yielded among other products 

 metallic, and therefore, probably, meteoric iron. Nordenskiold 

 collected the dust thus distributed through sno>v in Spitzbergen, 

 and proved its meteoric character by finding iron and cobalt in it. 

 The circulation of the winds no doubt carries other forms of dust, 

 including volcanic and desert sands, to enormous distances, but 

 meteoric iron can be distinguished amidst these without difficulty. 

 And meteoric iron is not the only — it, in fact, must be but a single 

 ingredient among several constituting the meteoric dust falling 

 through the atmosphere from the regions of space. Any dis- 

 colouration of the snow that has not an evident cause in neigh- 

 bouring sources of contamination should be at once suspected of 

 haviug an origin thus foreign ; and any steps feasible at the time 

 should be taken for preserving as much as possible of the dis - 

 colouring or otherwise foreign material. Some cubic yards of 

 such snow will yield, probably, barely enough material for a 

 satisfactory examination ; and the melting of this quantity and 

 the collecting, drying (at not too high a temperature), and pre- 

 serving the small amount of residue mixed with it, without 

 contamination from utensils employed in the process, involve care 

 and precautions that will suggest themselves to the observer 

 who may find himself in a position to avail himself of such an 

 opportunity of aiding science. 



Favourable places in which the residue from the melting of 

 snows during summer months might have collected without con- 

 tamination from impurities of local origin may, however, in all 

 probability be found by the observant traveller, and this residuary 

 material may so, perhaps, be secured in appreciable amount. 



The icelike snow underlying the more recent or the melted snow 

 may be found in some cases more richly charged by accumulation 

 with the foreign dust in question. The matter is one of such 

 great interest that it is well worth some trouble to endeavour to 

 collect appreciable amounts of this cosmical dust. 



