Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/549

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SKETCH OF BARON ADOLF ERIC NORDENSKIÖLD.
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unlimited freedom, the teachers showing no inclination to meddle much with the occupations of their pupils. He entered the University of Helsingfors in 1849, and devoted himself chiefly to the study of chemistry, natural history, mathematics, physics, and particularly mineralogy and geology. Having passed his candidate examination in 1853, he accompanied his father on a mineralogical tour to the Ural. In this expedition, according to Professor Fries, of Upsala, was unconsciously laid in him the beginning out of which his later expeditions grew. "It was an instance of the old eagle teaching the young one to fly." After his return from this excursion, Nordenskiöld continued to prosecute his chemical and mineralogical studies with zeal. The subject of his dissertation for the licentiate, "On the Crystalline Forms of Graphite and Chondrodite," which was delivered on the 28th of February, 1855, bore relation to them. During the following summer he was engaged upon a description of minerals found in Finland, which was published in the fall. Various short papers on mineralogy and molecular chemistry were published in the "Transactions of the Finnish Scientific Society," and a paper on "The Mollusca of Finland" was published by Nordenskiöld, along with Dr. E. Nylander, in 1856, in response to a prize question proposed by one of the faculty of the university. While these studies were being prosecuted, young Nordenskiöld had been appointed salaried curator of the mathematico-physical faculty, and had obtained a post at the mining office as mining engineer extraordinary, with inconsiderable pay, and an express understanding that no service would be required from him in return. He lost these positions in consequence of having been present at a festival where too much freedom was given to the expression of political feelings, and spent a few months abroad, working a part of the time at Rore's laboratory in Berlin at researches in mineral analysis. Returning to Finland, he secured a stipend for a line of study through Europe in 1857; but at the "Promotion Festival" in that year, where he was to take his master's and doctor's degrees, more liberal views were aired, which Yon Berg, the governor of the Duchy, considered treasonable, and Nordenskiöld left Finland again, this time not to return as a fixed resident. The displeasure of the Government against him was not, however, of long continuance, for he has been welcome in Finland since 1862, and he might have been appointed Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Helsingfors, had he been willing to agree to give up politics. He became naturalized in Sweden, and soon rose to eminence in public life and in science.

The Arctic voyages of Baron Nordenskiöld began in 1858, when he took part in the Swedish expedition to Spitzbergen under Torell, the chief of the Swedish Geological Survey. On his return, he was appointed successor to Mosander in the Riks Museum at Stockholm, where he immediately went to work, partly at the arrangement of the museum, partly at the scientific researches which formed the subjects