Page:In the high heavens.djvu/353

 fallacious. I allude here to the famous mass of so-called meteoric iron discovered by Nordenskjöld, at Ovifak, on the coast of Greenland. Great masses of metallic iron amounting collectively to many tons were found at the place which we have named. The occurrence of iron in a metallic state is a circumstance so unusual that specimens of this body were examined with particular interest. The iron was found to be mixed with nickel, thus producing the remarkable alloy generally recognised as characteristic of meteorites. This suggested that these Ovifak irons might have tumbled down from the sky, like other masses of iron-nickel alloy which were known to have done so. The conclusion was indeed quite a natural one when it was observed that the metal in question differed in no perceptible respect from that in undoubted meteorites.

Close examination on the actual sea-shore where these masses were found has, however, made it clear that the famous Ovifak irons have come, not from the heavens above, but from the earth beneath. There are a large number of pieces which lie imbedded in basalt, and as the surrounding rock has weathered away the lumps of iron have become exposed. It is also plain from the complete manner in which the irons are incorporated with the once molten lava that it would be absurd to attribute to them a meteoritic origin. Had lumps of iron-nickel alloy been lying simply on the basalt beneath, then of course they might have been concluded to be meteoritic with just the same logic as that by which a celestial origin was attributed to the great iron mass found by Pallas in Siberia. But it is perfectly plain that the Ovifak iron has once been surrounded by molten lava, for sections of some specimens exhibit in the most striking