NOR'DENFELT MACHINE GUN. See INIArifixE Gt NORDENSKJoLD, ntir'drn-slield. NILS ADOLF Baron (1832-1901). A famous geographer and explorer. Ile was born at lielsingfors. Fin land. Ile entered the university of hi- native town in 1849, where lie devoted himself especially to ehemistry and mineralogy. In 165:3 he accom panied his father to the rrals and studied p:n• ticulnrly the iron and copper mines at Tagilsk. ie•turning home, he published his first papers. dealing with the minerals and mollusca of Fin land, and received an apindittnient as curator of the inathematico-physical fatality. Ile was -nAdenl• dismissed. however, because he otTered a toast at a banquet to which the bivernor gave an obnoxious political significance. Visit inn BiT1111, ho engaged in researches in mineral analysis at Llosc's laboratory. in 1857 re turned to Finland. obtained t he Alexander trait-ling stipend from his university• together with his degree as master and doetor, and pre pared for a geological expedition to Siberia and Kanitchatka. .\ wither unliteky toast gave offense to the Russian Govertior-General. and lie drove the offender from the eountry. following hint up with a dispatch depriving him of the right of vet. (dike in the university. This dis qualific•ation lasted until a new Governor•Ceneral way appointed in 1862. Nordenskirdil settled in so' ekholni in the winter of 1857-53, and Sweden became his adopted country. 1Ho•ing 1858 hi made his first voyage to Aret ic seas is eompanion to the Swedish geologist Toren. and made vain tilde discoveries of the rcunains of Tertiary plants. After his return he was appointed professor and director of the Royal-Museum, Stockholm. In 1801 he made a second expedition to Spitzbergen with ToreII, and seo•vcyed the northern part of the archipelago. Upon invitation of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden. Nordenskjiild led an expedition to Spitzbergen in 1804, completing a preliminary snrvey for the are of the meridian, mapping the southern part of Spitzbergen, and collecting new data as to fauna and flora. His next expedition was in 18118, when in the Sofia lie penetrated to latitude 81° 42' N. A visit to
Greenland had important scientific results in that he was enabled to formulate a theory as to the nature of the iee-sheet that once covered the greater part of Europe by his examinations of similar formations upon the Greenland icecap. The expedition of 1873 accomplished the discovery of what he supposed to he cosmic (lust on polar iee and the survey of part of Northwest Land. Crossing the Kara Sea in 1875, he penetrated to the Yenisei and returned home overland, believing that a northeast passage eould be made from Europe to the eastern shore of Asia. The opinion was pia to the test in 1878-79. lie left Tromsn on July 21. 1878. in the Vega, and continued his journey eastward till the end of September. when be became ice-bound in latitude 67° 7' N. and longitude 173° 23' W., not far from Bering Strait. Here he remained imprisoned until July 18, 1879, when the expedition was released. Ile then passed through Bering Strait and sailed todapan. For this achievement the King, of Sweden and Norway eon ferred uplift Nordenskj;?Id the rank of a baron in the Swedish peerage, and he was appointed com mander of the Order of the North Star. In 1883 he made his last expedition to tlreenland. Nor dennkja?dcl was a liberal in polities and sat in l870.72 in the Lower Douse of the Swedish Diet. Ile discovered uranium in ninny varieties of coal, and showed that fresh water could lie found any where in Sweden at a depth of 100 feet through the Arelnean rocks. Besides scientific reports and monographs, his principal works are: 7'he Voyage of the Vega Around Asia (1881) The Second Swedish Expedition to Greenland Fac simile' Atlas to the Ear•lq History of Cartography (1SS9) ; and Pcriplus (1897). Consult the auto biographieal sketch in Bejer's Swedish Biographi cal Li.ricem, a translation of parts of which may lie found in The Arctic Voyages of Adolf Erik NordenskjOhl, edited by Alexander Leslie (Lon. don. 1879) : also articles and bibliography in er, vol. xxii. (Stoekholm, 1902).