Results of a Second Geological Survey of Russia. 99 
Letter to M. Fischer de Waldheim, Ex-President of the Society 
of Naturalists of Moscow, from R. I. Murchison, Esq., con- 
taining some of the results of his Second Geological Survey 
of Russia*. 
Moscow, Oct. 8. 1841. 
My prar S1r,—As you have taken a lively interest in the success of 
the geological expedition which I have just completed, accompanied by 
my friends M. de Verneuil, Count de Keyserling, and Lieutenant Kok- 
sharoff, I hasten to communicate to you some of its chief results ; and I 
do so with real pleasure, because in requesting you to present them to the 
Society of Naturalists of Moscow, I acquit myself of a duty towards a 
distinguished body which has done me the honour of placing my name in 
the list of its foreign members. 
The wide extension in the North of Russia of the Silurian, Devonian, 
and Carboniferous Systems, as proceeding from the last year’s survey, by 
the same observers and our friend the Baron A. de Meyendorf, is already 
known to you from the abstracts of memoirs communicated to the Geo- 
logical Societies of London and Paris. Our principal objects this year 
were,—Ist, To study the order of superposition, the relations and geo- 
graphical distribution of the other and superior sedimentary rocks in the 
central and southern parts of the empire. 2d, To examine the Ural 
Mountains, and to observe the manner in which that chain rises from be- 
neath the horizontal formations of Russia. 8d, To explore the carboni- 
ferous region of the Donetz, and the adjacent rocks on the Sea of Azof. 
Our last year’s survey had pretty nearly determined the limits of the 
great tract of carboniferous limestone of the North of Russia. On this 
occasion we have added to its upper part that remarkable mass of rock 
which forms the peninsula of the Volga near Samara, and which, clearly 
exposed in lofty, vertical cliffs, and charged with myriads of the curious 
fossils Fusilina, constitutes one of the striking features of Russian geology. 
The carboniferous system is surmounted, to the east of the Volga, bya 
vast series of beds of marls, schists, limestones, sandstones, and conglo- 
merates, to which I propose to give the name of “ Permian System,” be- 
cause, although this series represents as a whole the lower new red sand- 
stone (Rothe todte liegende) and the magnesian limestone or Zechstein ; 
yet it cannot be classed exactly (whether by the succession of the strata 
or their contents) with either of the German or British subdivisions of 
this age. Moreover the British lithological term of lower new red sand- 
stonet, is as inapplicable to the great masses of marls, white and yellow 
limestones, and gray copper grits, as the name of old red sandstone was 
found to be in reference to the schistose black rocks of Devonshire. 
ee 
* We are indebted to Mr Murchison for a copy of his Letter. 
Tt See Silurian System, p. 54. 
