Sketch of the Geology of Northern Russia. 23 



Af the foot of the Ural Mountains a broad tract of red marl, salt 

 and gypsum, follows the course of the Kama, and probably is con-r 

 nected with the salt district of Vologda in the south. The alabaster 

 grottos of Perm, in this neighborhood, are said to exceed that of 

 Barnacouva. On both sides of this salt country, is an immense tract 

 of copper sand, which borders the south west sides of the Ural 

 Mountains. It is of a dull reddish green, and contains fossil wood, 

 "resembling the fossil vegetables of the English coal formations." 



A salt district, full of lakes, occurs at the south east corner of the 

 Urals, connecting Siberia with European Russia and the steppe of 

 the Kirghis. 



Secondary rocks extend across the whole country of southern 

 Russia as far south as the primitive steppe. Coal has been found 

 near Toula, but cannot be obtained on account of the quicksands 

 beneath it. 



STEPPES. 



Steppe denotes a tract of waste country destitute of forests. It 

 may be desert, or covered with herbage, like the pampas and prairies 

 of South and North America. In Russia, a variety of tracts are 

 denominated steppes, as the high, tlie low, the salt, the sandy, the 

 stony, the icy, and other steppes, differing, each from the other, in 

 every feature except the absence of wood. 



^\\e primitive steppe reaches S. S. E. from the upper part of the 

 Bug to the Birda, crosses the Dnieper, and passing south terminates 

 near the Black Sea. The rocks in this tract are granite with garnets 

 disseminated, running at times into trap or sienite. A fine earthy 

 felspar occurs near Gallicia, fit for making porcelain. 



Calcareous steppe. — A series of calcareous rocks occurs on the 

 margin of the primitive steppe, by the line of the Dniester and the 

 shores of the Black Sea. Limestone containing shells and large 

 grained oolites, occupies large tracts between the Bug and the Dnie- 

 per. Bitumen appears at the sea of Asoph, and at the end of the 

 Caucasian chain. Secondary limestone forms a high intermediate 

 steppe, around the northern edge of Caucasus. The bituminous 

 formation, in a ridge of argillaceous shale, composes the level coun- 

 try of Shirvan : the hills of Shirvan and Daghestan, are of shelly 

 limestone. Bitumen again appears in the Isles of Jsfaphtha, on the 

 o!a stern shores of the Caspian. 



