446 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



scribed 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 conglomerate-like structure. 



As considerable masses of ii-on, 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 meteoiitic 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 — has 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 ; and no cxide-of-iron-mineral containing 

 nickel, and at the same time almost free from lime and silica, is 

 known. The formation of the iron from chloride of iron, erup- 

 ted from the interior of the earth and since reduced, can hai-dly 

 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 was fortunate enough to meet with a piece of me- 

 teoric iron from the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn. He received 

 the piece, which weighed 7J Skalpund (71b Avoird.), from Dr. 

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

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

 rough surface, consisting principally of very hard, tough iron, 

 not crumbling. 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 de- 

 scription of it, especially if, as is greatly to be wished,* the three 

 larger iron blocks at Ovifak should be brought home, in which 

 case I shall be enabled to give a complete account of all the 

 Greenland discoveries of iron, together with more analyses. I 

 will here simply enumerate the discoveries of iron hitherto made 

 on the western coast of Greenland. 



(1.) Ross' and Kane's discovery of Iron iii Davis Strait. — 

 According to these famous polar navigators, the Esquimaux in 

 North Greenland make knives and instruments of iron from some 

 large blocks situated probably somewhere to the north of 

 Upernivik. See above, p. 324. 



* As I have above mentioued, the Swedish Government sent for this 

 purpose an expedition to Greenland in 1872, which succeeded in bringing home 

 not only the three meteorites of 21, 8, and 4 tons, but also several smaller ones 

 of from 4 to 200 kilogr. 



