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On the Existence of Nickel-iron with Widmannstätten's Figures in the Basalt of North Greenland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

K. J. V. Steenstrup
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Extract

Among the minerals found in meteorites, there is none which has attracted the general notice to such a degree as the metallic nickel-iron, especially from the fact that it has hitherto never been seen for certain in any telluric rocks. Nay, so much stress was laid upon this latter circumstance, that such iron was thought never to occur here on earth without having been carried to us from the outer universe, and ever since Chladni's report on the iron-mass of Pallas, every loose block of iron lying on the surface of the ground, nay, even deeply imbedded in it, has generally been declared to be a meteorite, if it only contained a certain percentage of nickel and, which was not always the case, manifested some crystalline texture, called after the discoverer "Widmannstäitten's figures."

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical magazine and journal of the Mineralogical Society , Volume 6 , Issue 27 , July 1884 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1884

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References

page 2 note * In the literature this place is called Ovifak, but ought without doubt to be written Uifak, as we must suppose it to be connected with "uiariak, I, you, shall go outside" (see the Greenland dictionary of Kleinschmidt). With Uivfak, a fern, it has nothing in common.

page 2 note † Kgl. Sv. Vetensk. Akad. Förh., 1870, p. 1067.

page 2 note ‡ Iu for instance Quart. Journ. of the Geol. Soc. of London, Vol. XXVIIL page 44 ; and Post-och Inrikes.Tidningar, 1871, Nos. 255 and 260, and1872, Nos. ll0and 111.

page 2 note § Bihang. t. Kgl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl., Vol. I. No. 6, p. 35.

page 3 note * Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, 1872, No. III.

page 3 note † Wöhler, Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, 1872. Daubrée, Comptes rendus, LXXIV., LXXV. and LXXXIV. Tschermak, Mineralog. Mittheil., 1874.

page 3 note ‡ Vidensk. Meddelelser fra den Naturh. Forening i Kbhvn, 1875, p. 295, and Min. Magazine, Vol. I. p. 143.

page 4 note * Zeitsch. d. deutsch, geolog. Gesellschaft XXVIII. p. 225.

page 4 note † Abh. der Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1879.

page 4 note ‡ Annales de Chimie et de Physique, XVI 1879.

page 5 note * Anna les de Chimie et de Physique, XVI., IS79, p. 491.

page 5 note † Comptes rendus, LXXXVI1., 1878, Sćance du 9 Décembre.

page 5 note ‡ Bihaug. t. Kgl, Sv. Vet. Akad. Handlingar, Bd. V. No. 10.

page 5 note § Bihang. t. Kgl. Sv. Yet. Akad. Handlingar, Vol. V. No, IO, p. 17.

page 6 note * Ross, Voyage of Discovery . . . . of North-West Passage, London, 1819, p. 98, and LXXXIX. The Edinburgh Phil. Journal, Vol. I., 1819, p. 154. Silliman, American Journal of Science, Vol. 42, 1866, p 249. Compte rendu du Congrès international d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie préhistoriques, Bruxelles, 1872, 6me. Session, p. 242.

page 6 note † Christian VIII. caused in the years of 1840.50 two expeditions to be equipped for the purpose of looking for these iron masses, one on dog sledges, and one in boats ; but no result was obtained, the former only going a few miles from Upernivik, and the latter not even setting out.

page 6 note ‡ Rink got this iron, among other minerals, from a Greenlander. It resembles very much the iron from Ekaluit, and is the same piece which Forchhammer mentions to have received from Motzfeldt. (Lütken Almeenf. Naturskildringer, I. p. 220, Note.)

page 6 note § Of this iron we know nothing but what iswritten in Gieseckés MS. Catalogue : " Ein zerfresscnes Stück (gediegeu Eisen ?) gefundcn in einem Torflager auf Arveprindscns Eiland."

page 8 note * But only seen with the naked eye ; for in microscopic preparations, exhibiting both varieties, one sees how the fluctuating structure by which the ferriferous basalt is in so high a degree distinguished, passes into the granular structure of the columnar-basalt and effaces the limit.

page 10 note * Communicated in "Vidensk Selskab," the 26th Jan. and 9th Feb., 1872.

page 10 note † Not given with this Paper.

page 11 note * According to Dr. Törnebohm, my notion that the iron is here found in a layer and not in one or two dykes has now been acceded to by Professor Nordenskiöld. L.c.p. 4. See also Nordenskiöld : " Studier och Forskningar," p. 210.

page 13 note * Vidensk. Meddelelser fra den naturh. Forening i Kbhvn, 1875 p. 304.