GOLD 



703 



The gold mine of Beresow in the Ural Mountains has been long known, consist- 

 ing of partially -decomposed auriferous pyrites, disseminated in a vein of greasy quartz. 

 This is, according to Murchison, ' the only work at which subterranean mining in the 

 solid rock is still practised ; there the shaft traverses a mass of apparently metamor- 

 phosed and crystalline matrix, called " beresitc," resembling a decomposed granite with 



1117 



veins of quartz, in which some gold is disseminated.' About 1820, a very rich deposit 

 of native gold was discovered on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, disseminated 

 at some yards deep in an argillaceous loam, and accompanied with the debris of 

 rocks which usually compose the auriferous alluvial soils, as greenstone, serpentine, 

 peroxide of iron, corundum, &c. The rivers of this district possess auriferous 

 sands. 



At the Soimanofsk mines, south of Miask, great piles of ancient drift or gravel 

 having been removed for the extraction of gold, the eroded edges of highly -inclined 

 crystalline limestones have been exposed, which, from being much nearer the centre 

 of the chain than the above, are probably of Silurian or Devonian age (fig. 1117). It is 

 from the adjacent eruptive serpentinous masses and slaty rocks b, that the gold shingle c, 

 (usually most auriferous near the surface of the abraded rock a) has been derived. 

 The tops of the highly-inclined beds a are in fact rounded off, and the interstices 

 between them worn into holes and cavities, as if by very powerful action of water. 

 Now here, as at Berezovsk, mammoth-remains have been found. They were lodged 

 in the lowest part of the excavation, at the spot marked m, and at about fifty feet 

 beneath the original surface of overlying coarse gravel c, before it was removed by the 

 workmen from the vacant space under the dotted line. The feeble influence of 

 the streams n, which now flow, in excavating even the loose shingle is seen at 

 the spot marked o, the bed of the rivulet having been lowered by human labour 

 from its natural level o, to that marked n, for the convenience of the diggers. 

 Murchison. 



It was from the infillings of one of the gravelly depressions between the eleva- 

 tions, south of Miask, that the largest lump of solid gold was found, of which at that 

 time (1824) there was any record. The 'pepita' weighs ninety-six pounds troy, 

 and is still exhibited in the museum of the Imperial School of Mines at St. Petersburg. 



The quantity of gold raised in Eussia during five years was as follows : 



1847 

 1848 

 1849 

 1850 

 1851 



1700 poods. 

 1660 

 1530 

 1490 

 1266 , 



7646 



Equal to about 296,932 Ibs. troy in five years. Lectures on Gold, E. Hunt. 

 The total production of gold in Eussia has of late years been as follows : 



( Ural, Eastern and Western Siberia). 



Government Mines, Private Mines. 



oz. 



07,. 



665,986 

 643,159 

 640;885 



1860 . . . , . m,984 



1861 105,959 



1862 . . . . - %: . - . 102,857 



1847 (the year of maximum production) . 

 1852 (the year of minimum production) 



The largest single production in 1860 was from the Aurora Steam Works on the 



Total 

 oz. 



767.870 

 749,118 

 752,742 



oz. 



961,616 

 720,320 



