376 



EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



is reached from the European side so gradually that the traveller is scarcely 

 sensible of having- quitted the plains. On the Asiatic side the slope is even still 

 more gentle, the absolute descent as far as Yekaterinburg scarcely amounting to 

 300 feet. The bare rocks are also seldom visible, being mostly covered with mosses, 



Fig. 200. — Divergent Spurs of the Southern Urals. 

 Scale 1 : 6,580,000. 



, 50 Miles 



or even peat beds, and according to Ludwig lakes are concealed beneath such 

 thick layers of turf that carriage ways cross them without danger. 



The region of the Middle Urals, which has been most exposed to the action of 

 the weather, has also acquired the greatest importance from its mineral wealth. 

 Since 1815 gold associated with platinum has here been mined, besides which there 

 occur whole mountains of iron and other metals, especially copper, nearly always 

 embedded in Permian formations. But the gold is sought not in the granite or 

 serpentine rocks themselves, but in the fragments scattered over considerable tracts, 

 probably by glacier action. On both sides of the range the Perm, Orenburg, and 



