CHAP. VII.] 
CURIOUS CRYSTALS. 
327 
for renewed investigations in the direction indicated, which 
our involuntary rest at the drift-ice field offered. 
Immediately after the Ve,ga lay-to, I therefore went down on 
the ice in order to see whether here too some such metalliferous 
dust, as I had before found north of Spitzbergen, was not to be 
found on the surface of the ice. Nothing of the kind, however, 
was to be seen. On the other hand, Lieutenant Nordquist 
observed small yellow specks in the snow, which I asked him to 
collect and hand over for investigation to Dr. Kjellman. For I 
supposed that the specks consisted of diatom ooze. After exa¬ 
mining them Dr. Kjellman however declared that they did not 
consist of any organic substance, 
but of crystallised grains of sand. 
I too now examined them more 
closeljg but unfortunately not until 
the morning after we had left the 
ice-field, and then found that the 
supposed ooze consisted of pale 
yellow crystals (not fragments of 
crystals) without mixture of foreign 
matter. The quantity of crystals, 
which were obtained from about 
three litres of snow, skimmed from 
the surface of the snow on an 
area of at most 10 square metres, amounted to nearly 0’2 gram. 
The crystals were found only near the surface of the snow, not 
in the deeper layers. They were up to 1 mm. in diameter, had 
the appearance shown in the accompanying wmodcut, and 
appeared to belong to the rhombic system, as they had one 
perfect cleavage and formed striated prisms terminated at either 
end by truncated pyramids. Unfortunately I could not make 
any actual measurements of them, because after being kept 
for some time in the air they weathered to a white non¬ 
crystalline powder. They lay, without being sensibly dissolved. 
FORM OF THE CRYSTALS 
Found on the ice off the Taimur coast. 
Magnified thirty to forty times. 
