328 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
for a whole night in the water formed by the melting of the 
snow. On being heated, too, they fell asunder into a tasteless 
white powder. The white powder, that was formed by the 
weathering of the crystals, was analysed after our return—21 
months after the discovery of the crystals—and was found to 
contain only carbonate of lime. 
The original composition and origin of this substance appears 
to me exceedingly enigmatical. It was not common carbonate 
of lime, for the crystals were rhombohedral and did not show 
the cleavage of calcite. Nor can there be a question of 
its being arragonite, because this mineral might indeed fall 
asunder of itself,” but in that case the newly-formed powder 
ought to be crystalline. Have the crystals originally been a 
new hydrated carbonate of lime, formed by crystallising out 
of the sea-water in intense cold, and then losing its water 
at a temperature of 10° or 20° above the freezing-point ? In 
such a case they ought not to have been found on the surface of 
the snow, but lower down on the surface of the ice. Or have 
they fallen down from the inter-planetary spaces to the surface 
of the earth, and before crumbling down have had a composition 
differing from terrestrial substances in the same way as various 
chemical compounds found in recent times in meteoric stones ? 
The occurrence of the crystals in the uppermost layer of snow 
and their falling asunder in the air, tell in favour of this view. 
Unfortunately there is now no possibility of settling these 
questions, but at all events this discovery is a further incitement 
to those who travel in the High North to collect with extreme 
care, from snow-fields lying far from the ordinary routes of com¬ 
munication, all foreign substances, though apparently of trifling 
importance. 
As this question can be answered with the greatest ease and 
certainty by investigations in the Polar regions, I shall here, for 
the guidance of future travellers, enumerate some discoveries 
of a like nature which have been made by me, or at my instance. 
