394 
COUNTRY OF NIJNY TURINSK AND VERKHOTURIE. 
pathway would have had no existence, and the wild Katchkanar could not have 
been visited by the geologist. 
The essential base of all the lower country at the eastern foot of the Katchkanar, 
consists of greenstone or other igneous rock, which extends to some distance from 
the axis. As soon, however, as we reached the banks of the Is, an east-flowing 
tributary of the Tura, and emerged from the dark forest into the first reclaimed 
ground, we were rejoiced by the sight of a group of our oldest fossil friends. The 
banks of this little river are in fact composed for a considerable distance of white 
limestone thickly tenanted by large Pentameri, some Trilobites, and shells which 
we hailed as true Silurians, and worthy of the very region of Caractacus. Re- 
membering the pleasure with which we first cast our eyes over analogous beautiful 
forms of the Ludlow formation in England, we were enchanted when we discovered 
myriads of them undistinguishable from the Pentamerus Knightii, so that seated on 
the grassy bank of the Is, we might for a moment have fancied ourselves in the 
meadows of the Lug at Aymestry *. These Silurian beds are here horizontal, 
a rare phenomenon in this convulsed region. They constitute, in fact, one of the 
little oases in a region of large dimensions, where the original surface has not been 
broken up and disturbed, like other beds already described near Kushvinsk. 
All around the Zavod of Nijny Turinsk, igneous rocks are again rife, and all 
palseozoic evidences are blotted out. M. Rose has already described the varieties 
of porphyry, porphyritic conglomerates, with augite, uralite, &c. which we tra- 
versed ; and little, indeed, offered itself as we travelled along the banks of the Tura, 
by which we could identify any of the strata there visible with unaltered deposits. 
About twenty-four versts east of Verkhoturie, however, micaceous sandstone and 
schist appeared on the edge of the stream which we believe to be a metamorphic 
deposit (mere altered sandstone and shale) ; the mass being thrown off to the north- 
north-east by syenite, veins of the latter were seen intruding into the micaceous 
slate, just as granite veins in many parts of the world penetrate what have been 
called “primary” schists. These strata are thrown about with devious inclina- 
tions, and whilst some dip to the east and north, others incline to the west and 
south, or away from the line of eruptive rocks, on one of which stands the fortress 
1 See Silurian System, p. 201 . Reasons will be given for assigning a new specific name to these shells, 
which in external form are so thoroughly identical with the Pentamerus Knightii, that Mr. Sowerby and 
other English conchologists will not even now admit that the distinctions indicate a new species. 
