360 
ENVIRONS OF EKATERINBURG. 
we resolved to complete our survey by descending the Tchussovaya from near the 
spot where it becomes navigable, and where the sedimentary rocks, receding from 
the great lines of eruption of the Ural, resume their ordinary characters. 
As this examination of the banks of the Tchussovaya was, however, connected 
with a traverse of the Ural on another parallel, and also with a descent of the 
Serebrianka river, we shall postpone our account of that operation until we have 
completed our first general section to the most eastern point explored. 
We therefore return to our general section. Near Bilimbayevsk (aZavod of the 
Strogonoff family), the Tchussovaya, where the high road crosses it, flows in red- 
dish alluvia, but immediately to the east of the stream talcose schists with granu- 
lar limestone and iron ore 1 announce that you are already in a portion of the cry- 
stalline axis. The gentle ascent of the road, over which Russian horses travel 
nearly as fast as in descending, is conducted on a smooth talus on which no rocks 
protrude, and it is from the detritus only that the geologist can suppose he is 
passing over the talcose, quartzose and metamorphic rocks, so apparent in other 
central parts of the chain. To the east of Vassilivrask, asbestiform, serpentinous 
schists mount into a round knoll, and near the post station of Talitza, greenstone 
is apparent at the surface ; but from the latter place to the summit no rock what- 
ever is seen in situ. The summit level of the road (the lowest pass in the whole 
range of the Ural) is not 1400 English feet above the sea, and does not exhibit any 
marked asperities, the rocks being only discernible in openings amid the fir-trees 
on the sides of the road, where they are seen to consist of a large-grained horn- 
blendic greenstone or syenite, which, as far as we could judge, seems to have 
pierced through chloritic and talcose schists 8 . Shortly beyond and at the station 
of Reshetsk or Reshety, where the water already descends to the east, granite rises 
above the surface in low masses, which, from the decomposing felspar, have 
assumed in weathering the appearance in miniature of the tors of Cornwall. 
Thence to Ekaterinburg the sloping route exposes little else than blocks of granite, 
which disintegrates into a sandy soil. 
We do not profess to have examined all the varieties of rock in the environs of 
this metropolis of the Ural. We could not, however, avoid noticing, that tal- 
cose and chloritic grauwacke schist and clay-slate are thrown about in the eastern 
1 M. Rose describes crystals of magnetic iron ore as being disseminated in this talc schist. 
2 The Volshaya or Bolsliaya Gora, or summit above the road, is stated by Humboldt to be from 377 to 
380 French toises, or rather less than 25CO English feet above the sea. 
