426 
ENCRINITE LIMESTONE IN THE CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 
Soimanofski Zavod, fyc. fyc. — After travelling along the flank of the chain for 
some distance to the south of Kishtymsk amid the woodlands, lakes, &c. seen in the 
preceding sketch, we followed the new road by Soimanofski Zavod to Zlataiist (see 
Map). We thus necessarily effected what was much to be desired, viz. both a 
longitudinal and transverse section of the chain itself, in tracts where its structure 
is exceedingly diversified. The first traverse, or that in the parallel of Soimanofsk, 
exposed in succession ridges like those of which Sugomac is the type, and in 
which limestones and serpentines also abound, together with decisive eruptive 
rocks, and altered quartz rocks, &c. Further on, and to the west of the Zavod 
of Soimanofsk, large masses of auriferous alluvia encumber the surface and in- 
clined edges of the subjacent and regularly stratified limestone, which enters quite 
into the heait of the chain 1 , dhe great point of interest to he now adverted to is, 
that after following the beautiful pastoral and upland valley of the river Miass, with 
the granitic ridge of the Ilmen- tau on the east and the higher eruptive and meta- 
morphic chain of the Ural-tau on the west ; i. e. when fairly encased between two 
great parallels of eruption, we discovered Encrinites in pure w r hite saccharoid lime- 
stone. So highly altered is the rock, that we could still less believe our eyes, 
than when many years ago in the Austrian Alps, with Professor Sedgwick, we 
discovered similar organic remains in the chloritic, primarized limestone in the 
lauern Alp. (Geol. Trans., vol. iii. p. 306.) This limestone being precisely on 
the stiike of the masses on the mountain of Sugomac and at Soimanofsk, left no 
option but that of admitting, that the associated stratified masses, however crystal- 
line they may now appear, were once quartzose sandstones and greywacke, formed 
under the sea at a period when palaeozoic life prevailed. 
The great transverse section across the whole chain in the parallel of Zlataiist, 
which will be presently described, strikingly illustrates this point and demonstrates, 
how invariably the altered character of the rocks and the presence of mineral veins, 
with bunches of simple minerals, are connected with and dependent upon the erup- 
tion of igneous matter. 
Group of Mountains around Zlataiist from whence radiate the ridges of the 
South Ural. — We had now passed along the flank of the Jurma (see Map), and 
kindness. He presented us with a very remarkable ore of iron from the mine of Yurasamskoi, west of 
Schatinsk, which is in parts made up of fibres nearly as fine as the filaments of asbestos. The Zavods 
around Kishtymsk produce 250,000 poods of iron and seventeen poods of gold per annum. 
1 I be gold alluvia and their relations to these subjacent rocks will be subsequently explained. 
