Foreign Geologists: Russian and 'Northern School. 573 



Whilst on the topic of Russia, I will now state, that if on ac- 

 count of the preparation of this discourse and other official duties 

 I had not been greatly occupied, I might before now have present- 

 ed to you some of the results of the second visit to that country. 

 In the mean time, however, my colleagues, M. de Verneuil and 

 Count Keyserling, have been sedulously comparing our collections 

 of fossils, and reducing a vast number of barometrical observations, 

 whilst with their cooperation I have already completed a general 

 table of superposition of Russian deposits, Avhich, with a. section 

 across Russia, and the map above alluded to, are now nearly ready 

 for publication. My brother geologists will feel that a general table 

 of classification ought to be the finishing stroke in illustration of 

 any country previously little known, and respecting which so much 

 confusion prevailed. We offer it, however, in the persuasion that 

 its leading divisions will be supported by the evidences hereafter to 

 be brought forward, and we simply put forth this table (which was 

 drawn up at Moscow after our second journey) to convey to the cul- 

 tivators of our science the chief results of our inquiries, and to place 

 them upon record as bearing date from September 1841. 



Among these results I will now merely allude to the first an- 

 nouncement of some of them, in a letter of the above date, ad- 

 dressed to Dr. Fischer de Waldheim at Moscow, in which the two 

 points most dwelt upon were the discovery of a large central dome 

 or axis of Devonian rocks, which separates Russia in Europe into 

 two great north and south basins of very dissimilar characters ; and 

 the classification of certain cupriferous deposits of sand, marl, lime- 

 stone, &c. under the term of " Permian system." As the explana- 

 tion of the reasons which led to the suggestion of this name will be 

 shortly offered to you in full detail, I should not now occupy your 

 time by alluding to it, had not the mention of the word already called 

 forth from M. A. Erman the remark, that these deposits have been 

 long known to other observers. I admit that they were mineralo- 

 gically known, but I deny that their geological position had been 

 determined by any competent geologist previous to the researches 

 of myself and friends ; and I contend that there was no Russian 

 formation concerning whose age so many contradictory opinions 

 had been expressed. As a proof of this, I may state that the illus- 

 trious Humboldt himself assured me in the spring of last year, that 

 it was the great point to whicii he hoped our labours would be di- 

 rected. So strongly indeed was the difficulty of placing these strata 

 in their correct geological horizon felt by Russian observers, that 

 Major Wangenheim von Qualen, who liad long and patiently studied 

 them in situ, and Dr. Fischer, who had ably described many of 

 their fossil contents, at once abandoned the field to my associates 

 and myself, and put us in possession of all their knowledge, avow- 

 ing their inability to arrive at a satisfactory geological conclusion. 

 I was, therefore, surprised to read tiie premature criticism of M. A. 

 Erman ; tiie more so, as tliat author has called a large portion of the 

 great linu'stone of Russia, Jurassic, whicii we have ascertained to be 

 carboniferous, and to form the support of the hitherto anomalous 



