Chap. XIII.] 
PERMIAN ROCKS OF RUSSIA. 
311 
* With the highest respect for the labours of German geologists upon the 
Zechstein, and for the researches of those authors who have placed the Magnesian 
Limestone of England on the same parallel, we are convinced that neither in 
Germany nor in Great Britain do the same accumulative proofs exist to establish 
the independence of a geological system. If mineral characters be appealed to, 
no German writer will contend that the thin course of ' Kupfer-Schiefer ' is of 
like importance with the numerous strata which in Russia constitute many bands 
of various structure, rendering, in fact, the Zechstein itself a mere subordinate 
member of a vast cupriferous series. Subordinate, however, as it is in some 
tracts of Russia, the Zechstein is so magnificently displayed in others, in masses 
of both limestone and gypsum, that it more than rivals the finest sections of 
that deposit, whether to the south of the Harz or in Thuringia. We object, 
however, to a lithological name hitherto reserved for one portion only of a 
complicated series ; and as the Germans have never proposed a single term for 
the whole group which is based upon the Roth-todt-liegende, and surmounted 
by the Trias, we have done so, simply because we first found in Russia the 
requisite union of proofs." 
Occupying the enormous area before mentioned, the Permian deposits of 
Russia are flanked and underlain on nearly all sides by different members of 
the Carboniferous rocks, containing comparatively little coal. These Permian 
strata of Russia seldom offer a mineral succession similar to that of formations of 
the same age in Western Europe. In different tracts of the vast region explored, 
they exhibit, as explained in the preceding quotation, many variations in their 
mineral and organic contents, as well as in the relative position of the component 
masses. In some places, as on the River Kama, near its junction with the Volga, 
cupriferous red grits with Plants underlie the chief limestone, and are succeeded 
by marls ; but along the eastern limits of the group, where it is flanked by the 
Ural Mountains, gypseous limestones form the base, followed upwards by the 
red copper-grits, sands, marls, limestones, and pebble-beds, which extend on all 
sides around the city of Perm. On the whole, indeed, whether we appealed to 
the sections on the banks of the great Dwina, above Archangel, to the western 
flank of the Ural Mountains, or to the banks of the Lower Volga, near Kazan, 
localities at vast distances from each other, we found that the limestones, of 
which there are several bands, often interstratified with much gypsum, prevailed 
towards the base of the Permian deposits of Russia. 
In parts of the region salt-springs occur. Some of these may possibly rise 
from solid bodies of salt in older Palaeozoic rocks, since the mineral is known to 
occur in the Devonian rocks of Livonia ; but in the steppes south of Orenburg, 
masses of rock-salt rise to the surface, and are certainly subordinate to red 
Permian deposits *. These salt-beds range up to the base of the older Palaeozoic 
and crystalline masses of the South Ural Mountains to the east of Orenburg, 
the strata of Permian age being visible only in the low wooded slopes at the 
foot of the rocky chain, as represented in the vignette at page 312. 
Along certain portions of the west flank of the same chain, the Permian strata 
occur in almost apparent conformity to the Carboniferous rocks. There they 
have manifestly undergone a movement impressed on them by great forces di- 
rected from north to .south, or parallel to the Ural Mountains, all the strata, 
whether Carboniferous or Permian, having been raised up, and thrown off sharply 
to the west f. From the Gurmaya Hills on the east to the Hill of Girialskaya. 
* Eussia-in-Europe, vol. i. p. 184. 
t See section, ' Kussia-in-Europe,' vol. i. p. 146, and ' Siluria,' 1st ed. p. 296. 
