154 
SECTIONS ON THE KIDASH CONTINUED. 
any, with the exception of some beds containing Modiolse, and very rarely a Pro- 
duces. The grits, sandstones, shales and pebbly beds of this district very much 
resemble those near Perm, contain many plants of the same species, and also afford 
thin seams of coal, from one and a half, to three and a half feet in thickness. 
The intimate connection of copper ore with the fossil vegetation, similar to that 
described at Perm, is most instructively displayed, particularly at the mines of 
Klutchefski near Bielebei, and at Kargala in the Steppes north of Orenburg. So 
general, in fact, is the connection of fossil wood and copper ore, that the discovery 
of the outcrop of the silicified trunk of a tree often leads the mining-agent to 
follow it into the rock and thereby to detect valuable cupriferous masses. Some- 
times the copper ore interlaces with all the fibres of the silicified wood ; at other 
times it is continuous through a mass of leaves, matted in sand, grit or marl, 
and thus a small nucleus of vegetable matter has often proved a source of con- 
siderable wealth. Where the copper permeates the coaly fibre, it is usually in 
the state of blue carbonate. As a general rule it may be said, that the sand- 
stone, grit and shale beds in which plants occur, are the great matrix of copper 
ore, and that this mineral is much more rarely found in the white and green marls 
— never indeed in the same quantity, and never, as far as we know, in the pure 
limestone '. 
An examination of the section from the valley of the Kidash to the adjoining 
plateau of Kailinski, and from thence to the river Ik, must indeed convince any 
one, that the whole of the beds we have been describing constitute one complex 
mineral series, with copper disseminated at intervals ; for at the base of the sec- 
tion on the Kidash, are beds containing Productus Cancrini, in the middle lime- 
stone and flagstones with Uniones or Anodons ; then plants and traces of coal ; 
and lastly, marl, sandstone, partial conglomerate and grit, with bones of Saurians. 
The annexed woodcut will convey a tolerably correct idea of the succession 
visible in one part of these valleys, where the mines are poor, but in which at least 
500 feet of strata are exposed. 
It was in these conglomerates and grits of the plateau of Karlinski (evidently 
in this spot superior to the great calcareous bands with Producti) that some of the 
Sauroid remains described by M. Fischer were found by Major Von Qualen 1 . The 
Rhopalodon Mantellii (Fischer), on the other hand, was detected in the conglomerate 
1 See our explanation of the connection of the copper ore with plants at the end of this chapter 
