THE URAL MOUNTAINS. 69 



miners having failed to augment the amount of Uralian 

 gold, and as it has never much exceeded half-a-million 

 sterling, the period is gradually arriving when the local 

 depressions or basins of auriferous detritus of that region 

 will be successively dug and washed out, and the Ural 

 will then resemble many other countries in possessing 

 actual mines of iron and copper, but merely a history of 

 its gold. Russia, however, has also the golden key of all 

 Eastern Siberia, in which various offsets of the Altai chain, 

 chiefly those which, separating the rivers Lena, Jenisei, 

 &c., stretch along the shores of the Baikal lake, hav(; 

 proved so very productive, that for some years they have 

 afforded three millions sterling average, exclusive of the 

 Ural. . . . 



' In a paper read before the British Association, Sir R. 

 Murchison points out the error into which some persons 

 had fallen, that the Uralian mines were worked under- 

 ground ; the only small subterranean work is one near 

 Ekaterineburg, which affords a very slight profit. All the 

 other mines along the Ural chain, throughout 8° of lat. are 

 simply diggings and washingswhich are made in the detritus 

 or shingle accumulated on the slopes of the ridges and in 

 the adjacent valleys, and, with one exception, are all upon 

 the east side of the range. This phenomenon is a 

 necessary result of the structure of the chain ; the older 

 deposits through which the eruptive rocks have risen 

 constituting chiefly the crest and east slopes of the chain, 

 whilst the western slopes are occupied by deposits of younger 

 or Permian age.' 



In regard to the origin of these auriferous deposits the 

 same writer states : — 



' When the region of Permia was submerged beneath 

 the sea, and the Permian deposits were in process of for- 

 mation, the Ural mountains formed the rocky shore of a 

 low continent, from which powerful streams poured into a 

 western sea. That old continent contained iron and 

 copper, but neither gold nor platinum ; for traces of those 



