456 
SILUKIA. 
[Chap. XIX. 
clined crystalline limestones have been exposed, which, being much nearer 
the centre of the chain than the above, are, I believe, of Silurian age. It is 
from the adjacent eruptive masses and slaty rocks, b, that the gold-shingle, c 
(usually most auriferous near the surface of the abraded rock, a), has been 
derived. 
The tops of the highly inclined beds, «, are, in fact, rounded off, and the inter- 
stices between them worn into holes and cavities, manifestly by very powerful 
aqueous action. Now here, as at Berezovsk (of which hereafter), Mammoth- 
remains have been found. They were lodged in the lowest part of the excava- 
tion, at the spot to which the small figure of a man is pointing, and at about 
fifty feet beneath the original surface of overlying coarse gravel, c, before it was 
removed by the workmen from the vacant space under the dotted line. The 
feeble influence of the existing stream, n, in excavating even the loose shingle, 
is seen at the spot marked o, the bed of the rivulet having been lowered by 
manual labour from its natural level, o, to that marked n, for the convenience of 
the diggers. 
In some spots the gold-bearing alluvium is a heavy clay ; in others it is made 
up of fragments of quartz-veins, chloritic and talcose schists, and diorite, 
which lie upon the sides of the hillocks of eruptive rocks *. It was from the 
infillings of one of the gravelly depressions which I visited, between these eleva- 
tions south of Miask, that the largest lump of solid gol<J was taken of which at 
that time (1824) there was any record t- The diggings by which the gravel or 
local drift was cleared away from around the vertical masses of rock, the sur- 
faces of which have been so much eroded and channelled out, are expressed in 
the following diagram. 
No watercourse sufficiently powerful to support a single block, much less to 
spread out broad accumulations of such coarse materials, now flows into this 
upland depression. Nor could the action during millions of years, of such an 
agency as that of the puny rivulets which now meander in parts of the gravelly 
low ground, account for the eroded and deeply worn surfaces of the rocks, 
whether crystalline limestones, quartzites, greenstone, or serpentine. We are 
thus necessarily compelled, by all the evidences, to adopt the belief that on 
the Asiatic side of the Ural, as in many parts of Europe, the transport of vast 
masses of Drift was accompanied by powerful and long-continued aqueous 
abrasion, most probably marine, of the summits and slopes of the adjacent 
auriferous hills. 
Whatever may have been the period when the rock was first rendered auri- 
ferous (and that was certainly long after the formation of the Palaeozoic deposits) 
the date of the distribution of the Uralian gold over the surface is clearly indi- 
cated ; for the detritus contains in many places remains of the same extinct 
* The auriferous shingle, gravel, or sand of the 1743 ozs. 3 dwts., or 145 lhs. 3 dwts. Troy, of which 
Ural Mountains is poor m percentage in compari- 6 ozs. only were estimated as matrix. As the 
son with what has of late years been discovered in Bank of England was necessarily the purchaser, 
California and Australia. Though very large ' pe- it was hoped that it would be preserved as the 
pitas ' or nuggets have occasionally been found, property of that Corporation in the British Mu- 
much of the auriferous ground considered worth seum, and be there viewed as a national treasure, 
working in Kussia, where labour is cheap, and its value being £6905 12s. 9d. ; but, alas! the legal 
water-power for crushing is everywhere at hand, documents by which the Bank Directors are bound 
would, if situated in Australia or California, be necessitate the keeping of all the Bank gold in the 
little heeded. cellars of the Bank. A still larger nugget, subse- 
t This 'pepita,' weighing ninety-six pounds quently discovered, and known as 'the Welcome 
Troy, is still exhibited in the Museum of the Im- Nugget,' was found at Ballarat, Victoria: it had a 
perial School of Mines at St. Petersburg. Since length of 20 inches, breadth of 12, and depth of 7 ; 
the first edition of this book was published, very it weighed 2195 ozs., and fetched £9325. See Prof, 
much larger nuggets have been discovered in Au- Tennant's Supplement to J. Arthur Phillips's 
stralia. One found in the Mines of Victoria, 120 paper on Gold- 
miles north of Melbourne, and called ' the Blanch 
Barkly Nugget,' and exhibited in London, weighed 
stralia. One found in the Mines of Victoria, 120 paper on Gold-mining &c, Soc. Arts, 1862 ; and 
north of Melbourne, and called * the Blanch Report Brit. Assoc. 1859, Trans. Sect. p. 85. 
