MONTHLY NOTICE. 



33 



MONTHLY NOTICE. 



1st. February, 1842. 



In the Philosophical Magazine for December last, will be 

 found a short sketch of the Geology of a portion of Russia, 

 as communicated to M. Fischer de Waldheim in a letter from 

 Mr. Murchison ; but as the results will shortly be submitted 

 to the Geological Society of London at greater length, we 

 will not attempt more than a brief recapitulation for the in- 

 formation of our friends. The communication relates more 

 immediately to coinciding observations made along the line 

 of the Veronige and Don by Count Keyserling, and along 

 the Koursk, Orel and river Oka by M. de Verneuil and the 

 author, confirming their individual statements, that a great 

 axis of Devonian rocks or old red sandstone, of the width 

 of 120 miles at least, rises in the heart of the country, 

 between Veronige and Orel, and stretches to the N.N.W.," 

 in which direction it probably connects itself with deposits 

 of the same age in Lithuania and Courland. This statement 

 not only vitiates the hitherto general idea that central Russia 

 presents a regular succession from older to younger depo- 

 sits as you proceed from N. to S., but also seems to have an 

 intimate relation, with the discovery relating to a band of 

 upper Silurian rocks near Schavli in Lithuania, proving, as 

 it does, the former existence of two vast basins ; hence a 

 difference in the currents and circumstances of both, and a 

 reason is also hereby assigned for the great difference in the 

 carboniferous deposits of the Donetz and Moscow regions. 

 It also proves the symmetry of the opposite edges of the 

 Moscow basin, since in advancing from Jula to Kaluga on 

 the S., we see the same ascending order as that in the 

 Waldai Hills ; in both tracts the Devonian old red rocks, 

 with many fishes and shells of that system, well known in 



VOL. I. NO. IT. D 



