The Hon. Mr. Strangways on the Geologi/ of Russia. 29 



of a high cliff of marl exactly resembling that of Nishney^ except that its beds 

 are undulating- rather than horizontal. On the opposite bank of the Volga 

 stand the ruins of Bolgary, the ancient capital of the Tartars ; as is attested 

 by an inscription in Tartar^ and by the coins of silver and copper bearing- the 

 names of their princes in Mongol^ which are frequently dug up there with 

 various other pieces of antiquity. The remains of several baths and minarets 

 are remarkable as being entirely built of stone, a sort of masonry hardly to be 

 seen in Russia. The stone seems partly to come from the same beds which are 

 used for foundations at Cazan, partly to be a species of tuf. No quarries are 

 visible near the ruins. The Arabic, Armenian, and Tartar inscriptions (many 

 of the Arabic, in Cufic characters) are well preserved and have been given by 

 Lepekhin. These remains of antiquity were first ordered to be preserved by 

 Peter the Great. Over the door of one of the buildings are some Arabesque 

 figures and chain patterns carved in a sandy stone, probably from a bed alter- 

 nating with the marl, which have resisted the ravagesof time better than most 

 of the external parts of the buildings. The hill on which they stand is of a loose 

 sandy rock, probably a form of the red ground. The black soil which covers 

 it is clothed with the yellow flowers of the Scabiosa Tatarica, and in the pea- 

 sants' gardens produces magnificent hops, which in August were covered with 

 bunches of three inches and a quarter in length, and broad in proportion ; it 

 bears also rich crops of corn and sunflowers. 



The same sand rock extends northward to Cazan, and is seen on the south 

 at Simbirsk. At the latter place, the upper part of the hills on the Volga 

 contains great quantities of very white marl (kreide mergel of Pallas), which 

 appears also at Tagay west of Simbirsk, and is seen along the brow of an 

 escarpment of bare downs for several miles. At Chircovo, the ridge between 

 the rivers Sara and Soura is composed of a variegated sandy clay, sparkling 

 with selenites. At Ardatof (Simb.) the same strata appear, either marly or 

 sandy, as at Nishney. 



It will be necessary to mention here the limestone of Cazan, for although 

 it has peculiar characters, yet it appears to belong to this formation. It is of 

 a greyish yellow colour, usually very distinctly oolitic, and at the same time 

 much harder and more compact than those rocks which form the oolite series 

 in England. It contains terebratulites, and long stalks which appear to be of 

 organic origin, although a regular termination is wanting at either end. It 

 contains small milk-white concretions of radiated quartz. The only rock I 

 have seen like it, is a hard oolite in Podolia *. 



* This limestone appears in beds jutting through the sand, on the side of the liill going up to 



