100 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1776. 



Ocean, and near which the mass of native iron has been discovered, there is 

 great plenty of iron ores, as well in the flat layers towards the northern level of 

 the country, where, among others, whole banks of ochraceous minerals, with 

 scattered trees and pieces of wood turned to rich iron ore, and near the town of 

 Jeniseisk, a rich iron ore, in the form of white clay and white sparry stones, is 

 to be found ; as also in the steep mountains, where the strata dip very consider- 

 ably, and ores of iron, copper, and even impregnated with gold, are found in 

 veins and nests. On the mountains, that lie along the eastern side of the above- 

 mentioned rivers, from 56° to 52° of latitude, where the highest ridge of moun- 

 tains begins, iron ores are most common, and the mountains generally consist of 

 grey or black slates and shivers, which rise steeper, or in a greater angle to the 

 horizon, as they come nearer to the high ridge of mountains, and approach 

 more to a level position, as they extend to the north. Some of these secondary 

 mountains are very high, rising very often to some thousand feet above the sea 

 surface, and most of them are covered with forests. A very rich iron ore in 

 veins was here discovered in the year 1749) on a steep, woody mountain, about 

 10 English miles from the river Jenisei, and 180 miles from the town of Kras- 

 noyarsk, situated on that river to the southward, about 54° of latitude, between 

 two rivulets, known by the names of Ubei and Sisim, and running into the 

 river on the eastern side. This place was then visited by the Russian miners ; 

 but as there was plenty of iron ores situated much nearer to the Fabrics, the 

 mine never was worked, though the ore contains above 70 pounds of iron in the 

 hundred weight, being of a dark steel colour, turning red when rubbed, and in 

 some parts endowed with a magnetic virtue. On the same mountain, where this 

 mine is situated, on the north side, much below the top of the mountain, the 

 mass of native iron lay on the very ridge, without being fixed to the rock, 

 .'vhich is a grey, stratified saxum. There was, on that and the neighbouring 

 mountains, no trace of ancient miners and their kilns, which are found in many 

 other parts of Siberia, and in which those miners, of some former and hitherto 

 unknown nation inhabiting these parts, mostly worked on copper ores. Nor 

 could so large a mass ever have been formed in the small kilns of these people, 

 which never could yield more than 50 or 6o pounds of metal at a time ; 

 whereas this mass, in its first condition, weighed above l680 Russian pounds. 

 It is throughout of the nature you may see in the specimen which M. Drury 

 will deliver. The iron is formed in a coarse, spongy texture, mostly pure, per- 

 fectly flexible, and fit to be worked to small tools by a moderate fire ; but in a 

 more violent one, and chiefly being melted down, it becomes dry and brittle, 

 resolves in grains, and will no more stick together, nor extend under the hammer. 

 In its natural state, the iron itself is incrusted with a kind of varnish, which has 

 preserved it from rust ; but, wherever this is lost, or the iron bars broken, rust 



