142 
SECTIONS OF LIMESTONE AND GYPSUM IN THE BABKA, ETC. 
north. He finds, it is true, several lithological analogies between the great 
country of Old Red Sandstone which lie has left to the north and west of the car- 
boniferous limestone, and the vast red region in which he is at first bewildered ; 
but with the discovery of fossils, he ascertains, that zoologically the one red 
region is wholly dissimilar from the other. Comparing the fossils with those of 
Western Europe, he assures himself, that he has entered into a formation higher 
in the series than the carboniferous limestone. 
His next object, therefore, is to explore those tracts wherein the elevation of the 
older strata with which he had previously made himself well acquainted, has been 
such, as clearly to expose a passage from them to the newer strata in question. 
Such proofs were, indeed, obtained to some extent in our first visit to Russia, by 
ascending the great Dwina ; but as the beds are there very horizontal, we shall 
appeal to that section in the next chapter, and in corroboration only of the suc- 
cession which is more clearly exhibited on the western flanks of the Ural Moun- 
tains. The slight sketch which has been given of the carboniferous rocks which 
occupy the hills on the western flanks of that chain, will enable our readers to 
understand how they rise out from beneath the Permian deposits, and referring to 
the coloured section (PL II. fig. 1.), as affording a general view of the order ob- 
served along the flanks of that chain, we shall at once proceed to detailed descrip- 
tions of different tracts, in the governments of Perm and Orenburg. 
Lowe / Limestone , Gypsum and Copper Deposits near Perm . — The oldest beds of 
this system, or those on the western slopes of the Ural Mountains, which succeed 
to the upper carboniferous strata, are well developed to the east of the city of 
Perm, on the banks of the rivers Sylva, Babka, Sira and Gromotucha, where they 
consist of finely laminated, calcareous flagstones, sometimes inclosing small con- 
cretions of white gypsum, at other times charged both with large concretionary 
masses and thin flaglike beds of the same mineral. Some of the calcareous beds 
resemble chalk marl, others are dark-coloured, hard, and somewhat bituminous, 
with courses approaching to chert, and the whole pass upwards into calcareous 
grits, sandstones, conglomerates, &c. 
At Verkni Podvolodchie, the cliffs on the right bank of the Sylva show an as- 
cending section, from flaglike limestones, through concretionary grey calcareous 
rocks, into overlying flagstones and grits, which are surmounted by shales and 
flagstone with plants. 
Near Tchelkanova, on the same river, amorphous masses of gypsum appear on 
