180 SIBEKIA. 



ill Ihc present tirno tho production of coal has not oiil\ jimm. in |iiM|/ress but Las even fall- 

 en. Although the production from ]i<^0 to 1^85 equalled from one million to 1. 035.000 pouds 

 a year, it has considerably fallen in recent years, and in lb91 was only BG-i^OO pouds. 



Graphite. 



Deposits of graphite are known in Siberia in the Kirghiz steppes, and in the govern- 

 laciits of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk. In the Kirghiz steppes several deposits have been 

 discovered, three of which, situated in the Kokpektinsk and Sergiopolsk districts, have 

 been exploited and the graphite sent fiom there to tho Perm steel and gun works. In the 

 government of Yeniseisk deposits of graphite were discovered in 1859 and 1803, by a Mr. 

 Sidorov, in the Tourankhansk legion along the rivers Nizhnaya Toungouzka, Bakhla and 

 Koupeika, the right tributaries of the Yenisei. At a distance of 200 to 500 versts up 

 the Nizhnaya Toungouzka there are four localities where graphite is found. This graphite 

 is sometimes laminar and sometimes columnar, and occurs in beds from one to two sagenes 

 thick, between layers of clay slate which have been metamorphosed by the action of eruptive 

 rocks; so that it may be supposed that this graphite has proceeded from the beds of Jurassic 

 coal which abound in this locality. The graphite contains from 4 to per cent of clay. It is 

 estimated that this deposit contains a store of 10 million pouds of graphite. The excellent 

 quality of this mineral has been recognized at both Russian and foreign exhibitions. The 

 Touroukhansk mineral has met with particular praise from various scientific and practical 

 men; several foreign authorities have likened it to Cumberland graphite, and in America a 

 series of comparative experiments proved that it excels the Ceylon graphite In purity. 

 In 1877 an other deposit of graphite was discovered by Sidorov on the Nizhnaya 

 Toungouzka, and 2,000 pouds of picked graphite were extracted and sent abroad. Seventy 

 thousand pouds of graphite have been extracted from the deposits discovered by Sidorov 

 in 18G1, along the river Koureika, which falls into the Yenisei at a 100 versts from the 

 town of Touroukhansk. Out of this amount the following parcels were dispatched during the 

 winter 18G3 to 1804: 1. five hundred pouds direct along the river Pechora, over the northern 

 marshes by reindeer and thence by sea to London; 2. five thousand pouds also by the northern 

 route to the river Taz by reindeer and thence by the Taz and Obi Bay to Obdorsk, and 

 then by the Pechora; 3. seven thousand pouds by Yeniseisk, Tomsk and Tumen to Perm, 

 and one; thousand pouds by the same route to St. Petersburg; 4. two hundred pouds from St. 

 Petersburg to Hamburg and Wurzburg. In 1891, ten thousand pouds of graphite were extracted 

 from the deposit on the river Nizhnaya Toungouzka for the recently formed Siberian 

 Graphite Company. 



In the government of Irkutsk a deposit of graphite was discovered in 1842 by Mr. 

 Aliber in Boutogolsk Golts in the Tounkinsk mountains on the spot where the rivers 

 Irkout, Kitoi, Belaya and Oka take their source. Here the graphite apparently occurs in 

 reniform masses, in druses and in veins in alternate beds of crystalline limestone and 

 laminar granite with quartz veins. In 1850 Aliber laid out the Mariinsk graphite mine on 



