Scientific Intelligence — Mineralogy and Geology. 387 



in the Oural Mountains, weighed about 10 kilogrammes (24 Rus- 

 sian pounds and 69 zolotnies = 10.117 kil.), or upwards of 22 lb. 

 English ;'' and it is that of which there is a plaster model in the 

 Mus:um of Natural History at Paris. On the 7th November last, 

 however, there was found in the same mountains a mass of native 

 gold, weighing more than three times as much, viz. 36.025 kil. (2 

 pouds, 7 Russian pounds, and 92 zolotnies) = about 80 pounds 

 English. The mines of Zarevo-Nicolaefsy and of Zarevo-Alexan- 

 drofsy, situated in the alluvial auriferous deposits of Miass, on the 

 Asiatic side of the southern portion of the Oural, have already af- 

 forded more than 6500 kilogrammes of gold. It was in this allu- 

 vium that, in 1836, the large mass of 10 kil., and several others, 

 of from 4 to 6^ kil. were found at a depth of a few centimetresf 

 under the surface. Subsequently to the year 1837, the mines of 

 Nicolaefsy and of Alexandrofsy seeming exhausted, new explorations 

 were made in the neighbourhood, and especially along the river 

 Tachnou-Targanna. Great success attended the search for gold in 

 that marshy plain, and the whole valley had been searched except 

 that part of it occupied by the building in which the washing ope- 

 rations were carried on. In 1842 it was resolved to remove the 

 houses, whereupon sands were met with of immense richness, and 

 lastly there was discovered under the very corner of a building, and 

 at a depth of three yards, the enormous mass of gold^ weicrhino- 36 

 kilogrammes. This mass is already placed in the collection of the 

 Corps des Mines at St Petersburgh. According to the information 

 given by M. de Humboldt, in the third volume of his Examen critique 

 de la Geopraphie du nouveau Continent, the mass of gold found in the 

 Oural in 1826 was inferior in weight to that discovered in 1502 in 

 the alluvium of the Island of Haiti, and inferior also to that found in 

 1821 in the United States, in the county of Cavarras, and described 

 by M. Zoehler, a pupil of the Freyberg School of Mines. The mass 

 found at Miass, fifteen years ago, weighs 10.117 kil. ; that of Ca- 

 varras 12.600 kil. ; that of Haiti 14 to 15 kil. ; but the mass of 

 gold found in November 1842 in beds of alluvium reposing on dio- 

 rite is more than twice the weight of the largest of these, as it 

 weighs no less than 36 kilogrammes. Such has been the prodi- 

 gious increase of the quantity of gold obtained by washing in Rus- 

 sia, and especially in Siberia, to the east of the southern chain of 



* A French kilogramme = 2.20548 lb. avoirdupois. — Edit. 

 t A centimetre = 0.393708 inches. — Edit. 



