OBSERVATIONS ON M. DEMIDOFF’S ‘ RUSSIE MERIDIONALE.’ 
121 
exclusively prevails, in another bituminous coal. By reference, however, to the explanation, and, above all, to an 
admirable series of tables, this defect is obviated. These tables are, in fact, perfect models for the practical mining 
engineer ; they give at one view the direction, inclination, thickness and quality of the coals at each locality, also the 
characters of the associated strata, as well as the state of the works, and their produce at each mine or spot of trial. 
To these is added another set of tables, in which the chemical analysis of the coals from forty-three different places 
is given by M. Malivaud, another agent of M. Demidoff. 
Into such details, valuable as they are, it was not our province to enter, and we will now, therefore, merely offer 
a few remarks explanatory of those points in which our geological conclusions either agree or are at variance with 
those of M. Le Play. 
We have stated that the fossils which he had brought to France, and which we inspected before our jour- 
neys to Russia (1840), first led us to believe, that the coal beds are chiefly subordinate to the carboniferous 
limestone. Of this, indeed, there could be no doubt, for the species were, to a great extent, the very same as 
those with which we were familiar in rocks of that age in Western Europe. On interrogating M. Le Play, 
however, we could not ascertain that he had arrived at any defined idea of a succession of strata, derived either 
from the stratigraphical order of mineral masses, or from their imbedded organic remains. In fact, he then 
distinctly acquainted us with what has now appeared in his work, that, owing to the disturbed and convoluted 
condition of the strata, the want of persistency of mineral characters, and the apparent existence of similar species 
of shells throughout the series, it was impracticable to assign a base line to the deposits, or to trace their 
uppermost limits, still less a passage into any superior formation. Now as we have ventured to effect these objects, 
we will here briefly state why we conceive M. Le Play did not arrive at similar results, although he had in his own 
hands some means of proof, which, through the hurried nature of our visit, we never obtained. 
No geologist, however practised, can, we venture to say, explain the structure of a part of a complicated distant 
country, unless he has made himself master iu undisturbed tracts, of the succession of its normal formations. 
Long as we have been occupied in the study of the Palaeozoic rocks, we are confident, that had we been thrown 
suddenly into the chain of the Donetz, and had been desired at once to unravel its complexity, we should have 
reached no other geological result than that of M. Le Play. We had, however, by two years of extensive compa- 
rative researches, obtained an intimate acquaintance, not only with the older Palaeozoic rocks of Russia generally, 
but in reference to the Carboniferous system, had convinced ourselves, that throughout the enormous area over 
which we had traced it, the upper or great coal formation of Western Europe was absent, and that the calcareous 
or lower group, occupying the whole carboniferous horizon, was by help of certain fossils divisible into three stages. 
Again, we had ascertained by numerous sections on both flanks of the Ural Mountains, that, in becoming part of 
a mountain mass, this system, so uniform and so peculiar over so vast a space, there put on many of its ordinary 
features so well known to those who have studied the carboniferous limestone only in the western parts of Europe. 
We further learnt, that, in the absence of any deposits to represent our coal-fields, the Carboniferous system 
was there succeeded, in ascending order, by a vast series of red and cupriferous deposits to which we have assigned 
the name of Permian. It will not, therefore, be arrogant on our part to say, that we entered upon the examina- 
tion of the territory of the Donetz possessed of elements of comparison which no previous travellers had acquired. 
Our task was, therefore, less difficult. Knowing from the maps and instructions furnished to us by the Admi- 
nistration of Mines, that the major axis of this tract and the main direction of the strata trend from west- 
north- west to east-south-east, we resolved, after terminating our researches in Southern Russia, to examine the 
chain of the Donetz in parallel lines, transverse to its general strike, and, by carrying out this scheme, we arrived 
at the conclusion, that the oldest member of the series occupies its southern frontier, and that after a multitude of 
flexures the central strata dip under the upper Fusulina limestone, the whole group being surmounted in the 
valley of Bachmuth by the equivalents of the Permian system. 
Our readers will have seen how much importance we attach to the presence of the large Pvoductus giganteus as 
uniformly characterizing (over vast regions in Russia) the lowest beds of the carboniferous limestone, and we were 
aware, as before stated, that M. Le Play had collected this fossil in the chain of the Donetz, though the exact loca- 
lity was unknown to us. We were, indeed, assured by Colonel Olivieri, that he had found this species in the great 
