FIRST SECTION ACROSS THE URAL. 
353 
necessarily again refer, when we come to treat of the tracts inhabited by the lost 
races of quadrupeds. 
After this short view of the general nature of the chain, we will now lay before 
our readers a series of descriptions of transverse sections which we made across 
it in various parallels of latitude. These descriptions will, indeed, follow 7 pretty 
much in the order in which we travelled, and by attention to the coloured sections 
(Plates II., III. and IV.), we trust that our readers will perfectly comprehend our 
general view T s. But although the description of the sections will sufficiently explain 
the leading geological features, there is one phsenomenon on which we must after- 
wards dwell separately, viz. the nature of the gold alluvia ; both to show that such 
accumulations w T ere formed in one of the most recent periods of change wdiich the 
earth’s surface has undergone, and also to connect it with the destruction ol the 
large Mammalia, at a time when our continents were beginning to assume their 
present form. 
We need not say that those who seek for detailed lithological distinctions and 
elaborate descriptions of mineral structure will not find any such in our pages : on 
such points it is alone necessary to refer to the lucid writings of M. Gustaf Rose 1 . 
General Section across the Ural by the route from Perm to Elcaterinburg , with an 
account of the eruptive Roclcs and Mineral Springs of Nijny Serginsk (PI. II. fig. 1.). 
— It has been previously shown that the Permian strata, occupying the regions 
watered by the Kama and its tributary the Sylva, sw r eep over large low 7 tracts at 
the western slopes of the Ural Mountains, from whence many of their component 
parts have been derived (p. 168). Extending to Kongur, these red and cupriferous 
deposits becoming highly gypsiferous, are lost under an extensive cover of black 
earth between Kongur and the post-house of Morgunnof. Thence to the station 
Zlataustsk the base of the country is calcareous, exhibiting here and there, parti- 
cularly in the environs of Saksomsk 2 , cavernous, white and yellow, dolomitic 
limestone forming low 7 hills, which, from the few remains detected in it, and more 
particularly by subsequent examination of its southern prolongation near Krasno 
Ufimsk, we considered to be carboniferous . 
- Reise nacli den, Ural, dem Altai und dem Kaspischen Meere von A. von Humboldt, G. Ehrenberg 
und G. Rose. Berlin, 1837 and 1842. 
9 An iron-work of M. Alex. Demidoff. 
s The heat was intense as we passed this tract, our thermometer in the shade of the carriage, even 
when exposed to the rapid current of air, being from 94° to 99° Fahrenheit. Late in the evening it fell 
to 88°, and at sunrise was 69°.— June 12, 1841. 
