The Mineral Resources of Greenland. 35 
Native iron. 
GIESECKE Was the first of several early explorers to bring back 
with him from Greenland а fragment of native iron, but Prof. А. Е. 
NORDENSKIÖLD, in 1870, was the first to find the iron-bearing basalt 
in place near Ovifak. The largest boulder of native топ, which had 
weathered from the basalt was some 2m (6.5 feet) in diameter and 
weighed 21 000 kg (23.15 short tons). 
К. J. У. STEENSTRUP, in 1872, found native iron-bearing andesite 
_ at Азик, and, in 1880, at three places on Mellemfjord (north side near 
mouth, at Ivigsarkut and at the head of the fiord) at Jernpynten, at 
Nuk, in the Waigat, and at Kuganguak, on the north coast of Disco 
Island. 
Among the rocks brought from Kaersut by WHITE and SCHUCHERT, 
who visited Greenland in 1897, was a native iron basalt fragment, which 
PHALEN has described. This, I am informed"), was presumably found 
in place. 
In resume, at nine places on Disco Island, the basic flow rocks 
of Miocene age contain native iron. The mother rocks vary from glassy 
olivine-free or olivine-poor basalts (Ovifak), through hypersthene 
andesites (Asuk) to andesites (Jernpynten and Ivigsarkut). Graphite 
and pyrrhotite are usually characteristic accessories and MOISSAN separ- 
ated sapphire from the native iron. The rocks belong to a single magma 
originating during a single period of extrusion and presunmaliy approx- 
imately contemporaneously. 
The iron occurs as lenticular masses connected with one another 
by threads of iron, and as disseminated spangles and grains. 
The native irons from the various localities, although they vary 
greatly in lustre, resistance to weathering, malleab’lity and chemical 
composition, really form a gradational series. Some upon etching show 
“Widmanstätten”-figures. From a single rock outcrop several forms of 
iron are frequently present. The Ovifak iron is hard, brittle, weathers 
readily, and is high in carbon; that from the other parts of Disco, ac- 
cording to K. J. V. STEENSTRUP, is like forge iron, since it is malleable, 
contains little carbon, and does not tarnish upon exposure to the air. 
Chemically, also Lorenzen found the irons to be linked by grad- 
ational forms. The elements present as alloys or impurities in the iron 
are copper, nickel, cobalt, sulphur, carbon, chlorine, and the ordinary 
constituents of basic igneous rocks. The absence of phosphorus (with 
the exception of Ovifak iron) is notable. The associated metals are 
lowest in the Asuk iron (Cu. 0.14, Ni. 0.34, Co. 0.06) and the highest 
in that from the head of Mellemfjord (Cu. 0.33, Ni. 2.55, Co. 0.54). Carbon 
1) Personal communication. 
3% 
