NORTHERN COAL DISTRICTS OF THIS TRACT. 
103 
with schists, which, though covered with much detritus and clay, seemed to belong 
to the carbonaceous tract. 
In briefly describing the country watered by the Krinka, we have said that amid 
numerous steep anticlinal flexures the northerly dip prevailed on the whole con- 
siderably over that to the south. This phenomenon, general throughout the an- 
thracitic region, and to which we have adverted in the sections (PI. I. figs. 1 & 2), 
convinced us, that the whole of this anthracitic mass was carried under the more 
productive coal tracts of the north-east, to which we shall presently direct atten- 
tion. In ascending the Donetz to the villages of Gundrofskaya and Kamenskaya, we 
met with other anticlinal ridges and synclinal troughs parallel to the general direc- 
tion of the region, and with dips both to the south and north ; but here the alter- 
nating grits are charged with Stigmaria, and the coal-seams are subordinate to 
mural masses and stony beds of limestone, the whole offering a great resemblance 
to the productive coal tract around Uspensk, which we shall soon describe. Thus 
in a ravine eight versts from Gundrofskaya, where the strike is west and by north, 
east and by south, and the dip 34° southerly, we met with a thin bed of coal sub- 
ordinate to sandstone, with Stigmaria and some clunch-like beds, the lower strata 
exhibiting three courses of limestone, with sandstone, grit, shale, ironstone concre- 
tions, and a second layer of coal : an anticlinal line succeeds, and similar strata are 
repeated. 
Near the village of Isvorin, in the valley of the Kameuka, the structure of the 
country is no longer the same as that of Gundrofskaya ; and instead of mural cal- 
careous masses, the crests of the ridges are composed of sandstones, black shale, 
schists, and hard grits, the latter forming terraces like those upon the banks of the 
Krinka ; thus showing, that owing to great undulations, the same groups are re- 
peated upon different parallels. 
Without detailing minute sections, which would only embarrass the general 
reader, we may assert, that on the whole, the survey of the south-eastern portion ot 
this coal tract proves, that the strata gather in ascending order from south to north, 
the country being composed on the whole in ascending older of 
1st. Sandstones and schists, with plants, forming high steppes and plateaus, 
with some limestone and anthracite. The grits become harder and more 
powerful to the north, and then constitute remarkable terraces, and give 
a more varied outline to the country . 
p 2 
