PREFACE. 
xi 
dividing into two companies proceeded to Kazan by different routes, 
the one by Arzamas and Simbirsk, the other by Nijny Novogorod. 
Separating in this way for short periods, and meeting at given points 
to combine new observations, it is not too much to assert, that the power 
of acquiring knowledge was nearly doubled, and that the results of the 
labour of nearly two summers were thus concentrated in one. The vast 
cupriferous regions to the east of Kazan and around Perm being first 
explored, the Ural Mountains were crossed and re-crossed on seven 
different parallels, between 60° and 54° north latitude ; the one party 
examining the European, the other the Asiatic flanks of the chain,' — 
the latter occasionally advancing into the flat regions of Siberia. 
Returning westwards from the environs of Orenburg 1 , Mr. Murchison 
and M. de Verneuil retraversed, in its greatest width, the southern and 
central part of the vast cupriferous country, the strata occupying which 
they again studied in detail, and thus became enabled to classify and 
connect them with the inferior systems. In the meantime Count Key- 
serling journeyed over the steppes of the Kirghis between Orenburg 
and Astrakhan, visiting by the way the isolated Mount Bogdo ; whilst 
the northern division were travelling over the banks of the Volga from 
Samara to Sarepta, there tracing the relations of the carboniferous, 
Jurassic, cretaceous and tertiary deposits. The steppes of the Kal- 
mucks, the mouth of the Don, and the edges of the Sea of Azof being 
skirted, with a view of examining the peculiar tertiary limestone of the 
southern steppes, a month was devoted to the exploration of the car- 
boniferous region of the Donetz, from whence the expedition returned to 
Moscow, again moving on two lines of observation, the one by Kharkof, 
Kursk and Orel, the other by the valley of the Don and Voroneje. 
It was then that, having finally worked out and compared the chief 
results of the labours of his friends and himself, Mr. Murchison pro- 
posed the establishment of the name Permian, as applied to the youngest 
1 The deep obligations of the authors to General Perovski, then Governor- General of Orenburg, and 
to the other authorities in the Ural Mountains, are expressed in the body of the work. 
