74 F. p. GULLIVER — PLANATION AND DISSECTION OF URAL MOUNTAINS 



Upland and to the valleys cut beneath it is shown in figure 2. There are 

 a few isolated summits rising a few meters above the upland in this region. 



Figure 2. — Chafranowa Section. 



The valleys in the present stage of dissection are about in adolescence. 



THE RIDGES 



After one has passed Ufa the character of the upland is changed from 

 a broad, irregular, inter-stream upland to a succession of upland ridges, 

 roughly parallel to the north and south axis of the Ural mountain fold- 

 ing. These ridges represent the harder or more resistant rocks which have 

 longer withstood the subaerial degradation. The view from the summit 

 of almost any of them discloses the fact that each rises to nearly the same 

 elevation as those on either side, and that the departures from uniformity 

 fall into two classes. The first variation from uniformity is a progressive 

 increase in elevation in going toward the center of the Urals. A tangent 

 surface touching these ridges would arch gently from a few hundred meters 

 near Ufa to some 1,400 or 1,500 meters where it rested on the Urenga ridge 

 near Slatoust. So gentle is this arch, however, that at any one point the 

 ridges seem to be in the same plane. 



The second class of variations are more irregular. Besides the vallej^s 

 which are cut beneath this ridge plane there are a number of rock 

 masses rising above the general level. 



THE MONADNOCKS 



In looking across the ridges from a number of different places it was 

 seen that here and there a few points rise above the general summit level 

 in any given localit^^ There are but few such rock masses along the 

 western edge of the mountains near Ufa or Perm, but nearer the center 

 of the mountain area these commanding peaks above the ridges were 

 more and more frequently seen. 



Taganai is perhaps the best type of these higher summits. Three 

 summits of resistant quartzite — Great, Little, and Middle Taganai — rise 

 above the weaker metamorphic schists, one quartzite bed having been 

 faulted to produce these three peaks. From the foot of Great Taganai 

 there is a most extensive view of the Ural summits in all directions. 

 The general accordance in elevation is nowhere better displa3'ed; extend- 

 ing in all directions, summit after summit appears rising nearly to the 



