Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/548

534 latter was only lieutenant, were elected members of the Swedish Academy of Sciences when it was founded in 1739. Carl Frederik is the common ancestor of the families bearing the name of Nordenskiöld now living in Sweden and Finland. One of his many remarkable sons, the third in order, Colonel Adolf Gustaf Nordenskiöld, became owner of Frugord, in Finland. This property, situated in a forest-crowned valley in the department of Nyland, is still in the possession of the Nordenskiölds. Here Colonel Adolf Gustaf Nordenskiöld built a peculiar residence, the middle of which is taken up with a hall two stories high, round the upper part of which runs a broad gallery, in which collections in natural history are arranged. His youngest son, Nils Gustaf, was born in 1792. After passing his examination in mining at the University of Upsala, he was for several years the pupil of Berzelius, with whom he formed the warmest friendship, which was only broken off by death. Nils Gustaf, early known as a distinguished mineralogist, was appointed a government inspector of mines in his native country, and, by means of liberal grants of public money, was enabled to undertake extensive foreign tours, which brought him into communication with most of the eminent mineralogists and chemists of the day in England, France, and Germany. After three years of foreign travel he returned to Finland, and was promoted in 1824 to be chief of the mining department, and devoted thirty years of restless activity to the improvement of that important branch of the industry of his native land. He traveled through Finland in all directions, in the prosecution of his untiring mineralogical and geological researches. His travels extended as far as the Ural. He published his views, discoveries, and experiments in many scientific periodicals and in several independent works, and a large number of minerals discovered by him afford evidence of his keen research. He was made Councilor of State, and obtained many distinctions for his scientific services from the sovereign and from learned bodies. On February 21, 1866, he ended his active life."

, the son of this Nils Gustaf, chief of the mining department of Finland, and of his wife Margaretta Sofia von Haartman, was born at Helsingfors, Finland, November 18, 1832, the third in order of seven children. In his boyhood he was an industrious collector of insects and minerals, and was permitted to accompany his father in mineralogical excursions. Under the guidance of his father, who, a pupil of Gahn and Berzelius, was an expert in those matters, he acquired a skill in recognizing and collecting minerals which proved of great service to him in the path of life he afterward followed, and in the use of the blowpipe. He subsequently undertook the charge of the rich mineral collection of Frugord, and made vacation tours, which were of great benefit to him. He studied for some time with a private tutor, and was then sent to the gymnasium at Borgo, where, according to his own accounts, he enjoyed an almost