SECTIONS OF THE KRINKA AND THE MIUSS. 
99 
been supposed, the Keuper or marines irise'es but is the equivalent of the Zechstein, 
and represents the great Russian deposits which we have grouped under the name 
of the “Permian System.” (See Chaps. VIII. and IX.) 
Country watered by the rivers Krinka and Miuss . — Before we continue the de- 
scription of the north-eastern and most productive coal tracts, we may offer a 
general sketch of the southern districts watered by the Krinka and the Miuss, and 
also say a few words upon the anthracitic region. 
In passing from the river Kalmiuss on the west, to the valley of the Krinka on the east, the great calcareous 
masses which form the base of the whole carboniferous tract disappear, both by thinning out and probably also 
by great flexures, which carry them beneath a highly inclined and contorted group of sandstone and schist. On 
the little river Cinka Kalinova the carboniferous rocks are overlaid by the chalk, and near this junction is an elevated 
hilly steppe made up chiefly of reddish and grey micaceous sandstone, occasionally schistose, and charged with 
many impressions of Calamites and other plants. The beds are much contorted, but their chief direction is west 
and by north, east and by south. Their inclination, which is usually very great, sometimes vertical, is for the 
most part to the north-east j but as there are many folds, the southerly dip is occasionally apparent. In our 
journey along the banks of the river Krinka, we met with many natural sections of sandstone and shale, the latter 
being mostly in the valleys, and the former occupying terraces, as above the village of Artemef ka, where three of 
these terraces, stretching from east to west, are composed of hard gritty sandstone wdth plants and quartz veins, 
and separated by bands of shale. 
In one spot north of Artemefka the usual strike of the strata is reversed to the north and by west, the dip 
being to the west. The same phenomenon is repeated at Kuteinikof, the inhabitants of which village informed 
us that traces of coal had been found a little to the south-east ; but the only natural outcrop of the mineral (and 
it was of worthless quality) which we observed was at Sniefka, where the valley of the Kririka is very deep, 
and the rocks consist of coarse-grained grit and shale. In approaching the valley of the river Miuss and in the 
neighbourhood of the village of Orlova, a thin hand of dark-coloured limestone occurs, having a thickness of four 
feet only, and no fossils : strike west 20° north of west, and dipping to the north-east ; and the same limestone is 
again met with in the plateau near the village of Grabovaya. 
In the valley of the Miuss, at Grabovaya, flagstones alternate with shale, the direction of which is west-north- 
west by east-south-east, and the dip north-north-east at 50°; and on descending the river to Novo-pavlofka the 
same beds reappear under similar conditions, and with the exception of a thin band of limestone on the height 
near that place, flagstones and shales, having very variable directions, occupy all this valley even to the village ol 
Demetriefka. Limestone reoccurs, however, at twelve versts south of the village of Ivanofka, and also at about an 
equal distance to the north of that place, the black compact limestone, apparently not differing from that before 
alluded to, contains small Spirifers and Encrinites. This portion of the tract is conterminous with the coal-beanng 
. district of Krasnoi-kut which we shall presently describe. 
Making every allowance for contortion and repetition of the same strata, we still 
believe that the group of rocks on the Krinka and the Miuss is of considerable thick- 
ness, and that it represents those lower members of the series upon the Kalmiuss 
which we have described, and in which much more calcareous matter is developed. 
In fact, we have only to follow any one of the zones, upon the strike of the strata, 
from the tracts in which limestone abounds, and we find the calcareous matter 
i See Ivanitzki’s ‘ Journal des Mines de Russie,’ vol. vi. p. 192. 
