METHOD OF EXPLORING THE CHAIN. 
347 
the characteristic sketch of the central crest rocks represented at the head of this 
chapter. Whilst Ekaterinburg, the chief town, is celebrated for water-works, which 
polish the hard porphyries and precious stones of the Ural, Zlataust has become 
the great Imperial workshop of the chain. Under the direction of the able engi- 
neer and metallurgist General Anosoff, this establishment, whether for the supe- 
riority of its blades of damasked steel or its richly embossed ornaments, may truly 
be called the Sheffield and Birmingham of Eastern Russia. 
As few tracts far to the south of Miask have been found to contain productive 
gold alluvia, and as the country, though rich in soil and vegetation, is chiefly inha- 
bited by poor and pastoral Bashkirs, no strong reasons have existed for rendering 
it easy of access. Two practicable routes, how r ever, exist across this southern por - 
tion of the chain (besides that from Orsk to Uralsk), both of which we were 
enabled to follow, through the obliging arrangements of General Perovski. The 
one called the starai-tract, or old road, traverses obliquely from Orenburg to 
Verch Uralsk, passing by the plateau of Sakmarka and the Irendyk Hills (here the 
Ural-tau or crest) ; the other, the commerzi tract, or commercial road, in great part 
completed by orders of General Perovski, crosses the numerous high ridges of which 
the western flanks of the chain are there composed, and among which the pictu- 
resque river Belaia threads its course into the lower countries on the west. 
In concluding this introduction it may be stated, that besides making lateral 
excursions, we traversed the Ural Mountains in seven different parallels, the 
geological features of which w r e have endeavoured to represent by as many coloured 
sections. Divided into two parties of research, and meeting occasionally at the 
chief places only, we w^ere thus enabled simultaneously to examine the European 
and Asiatic flanks of the chain, and accordingly to accomplish nearly as much in 
one season as any single party could have brought to light in two. In addition to 
the traverses of the chief ridge, we made many lateral and longitudinal excursions, 
and extended our travels eastwards as far as Kaltchedansk and Troitsk, in order 
to make ourselves acquainted with the essential distinctions of the subsoil of Si- 
beria as contrasted with that of European Russia. Again, as before indicated, we 
extended our researches in a subsequent year to the Timan ridge, a great north- 
western appendage of the chain, hitherto entirely undescribed. 
But notwithstanding every exertion in our power, we are fully aware that our 
results must on many points be defective, in the distinctions which ought to 
characterize a well-digested geological memoir. We profess, how r ever, simply to 
