CHAPTER XV. 
NORTH URAL OF THE MINERS. 
General View of the Geological Structure of the Ural. — First transverse Section of the 
Ural Mountains and their Dependencies, by the Route from Perm to Ekaterinburg , 
with an Account of the Eruptive Phenomena and Mineral Springs of Nijny Sergiefsk. 
— Continuation of the transverse Section along the Banks of the Issetz, from Eka- 
terinburg to Kaltcliedansk in Siberia. — Sketch of the region North of Ekaterinburg . 
— Character of the Rocks around the Zavods of Neviansk and Nijny Tagilsk. 
r I HE Ural Mountains have long been known to be made up of crystalline and 
slaty rocks, replete with ores and simple minerals, but their chief component parts 
have not yet been sufficiently defined, as consisting of certain sedimentary pa- 
laeozoic strata, which have, to a great extent, been metamorphosed by the 
agency of intrusive or eruptive rocks. From the presence of organic remains 
traceable at intervals along both flanks, and even close to the axis of this chain, 
we have, indeed, convinced ourselves, that some of their central ridges, whether 
in the garb of chloritic, talcose, micaceous or quartzose rocks, are scarcely, if 
ever, of higher antiquity than the unsolidified Lower Silurian shale on which St. 
Petersburg is built, whilst others, sometimes also in a crystalline state, are of the 
Devonian and Carboniferous age. But though we saw abundant proofs of the 
presence of unaltered paleeozoic strata in some spots, and of their metamorphism 
in others, it was obviously impossible without much more continuous labour 
than we could bestow on their examination, to separate the formations as distinctly 
from each other, as in the flat and undisturbed regions of Russia : nor could we 
trace with accuracy the outlines of every mass, which fossiliferous in one part 
of its range, in another is either cut off by some outburst of eruptive matter, or 
has through subterranean agency assumed a peculiar lithological aspect. Yet 
whilst the axis of these mountains, and the greater part of their eastern sides, 
