PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 439 



decidedly hit upon the stones I had described. A small specimen 

 was shown, which confirmed the statement. 



The place where the iron masses were found was not, however, 

 at Fortune Bay, but one of the shores most difficult of access in 

 the whole coast of Danish Greenland, namely Ovifak, or the Blue 

 Hill, which lies quite open to the south wind, and is inaccessible 

 in even a very moderate sea, between Laxe-bugt and Disko-ijord. 

 I scarcely need mention that this discovery completely altered the 

 plan for our further excursions. Our intention had been to 

 employ the rest of our sojourn in Greenland in an examination of 

 the basalt formations between Skandsen and Godhavn, and we 

 had therefore, immediately on our arrival at Godhavn, hired two 

 whale-boats manned with Greenlanders, with a view to rowing in 

 short day -journeys with them along the coast of Disko to the 

 eastward of Godhavn. These boats, on the morning when the 

 discovery of the meteorites was made, lay ready and provisioned 

 on the strand. We immediately set sail, and, favoured by a 

 tolerably good wind, we sailed westward to Ovifak, where we 

 arrived the same evening before sunset. The sea was calm, 

 so that it was possible to land, and the very stone at which we 

 lay to was itself a piece of meteoric iron, probably the largest 

 piece yet known. On searching more carefully we further dis- 

 covered two large and a great number of smaller pieces of 

 meteoric iron scattered over an area of a few square fathoms in the 

 vicinity of the large stone. 



The meteorites lay as on the accompanying map and section,* 

 between high and low water, among rounded blocks of gneiss 

 and granite, at the foot of a vast basalt slope, from which, higher 

 up, the horizontal basalt-beds of Mount Ovifak project. Six- 

 teen metres from the largest iron block a basalt ridge, a foot high, 

 rises from the detritus on the shore, and could be followed for a 

 distance of four metres, and is probably pari of the rock. Parallel 

 with this and nearer to the sea is another similar ridge, also about 

 four metres long. The former contained lenticular and dis- 

 coidal blocks of nickel-iron, like meteoric iron, in external 

 appearance, chemical nature, and relation to the atmosphere 

 (weathering). On being polished and etched this iron exhibited 

 fine Widmanstadtian figures. The native iron lay imbedded in 

 the basalt, separated from it at the most by a thin coating of rust. 

 Moreover, in that basalt, in the neighbourhood of the blocks of 

 native iron, nodules of hisingerite were found, evidently formed 

 by the oxidation of the iron, as also small imbedded particles of 

 nickel-iron. 



The meteorites themselves were of various colours, from that of 

 tombac (pinch-beck) to rusty-brown ; and in some places at least 

 they had a metallic lustre on the surface. Here and there one 

 could discover on their surface, and in the iron nearest the sur- 



* This Map (Plate V.TII., %. 1 and 2), inserted at p. 355, '' Geol. Mag." for 

 August, with Part II. of Prof. Nordenskiold's paper, is not reproduced here.— 

 Editor. 



