LAKE AUSHKUL AND ENVIRONS. 
437 
stratified granite, forming the external coating of the hill, have, under the critical 
examination of M. Rose, been distinguished by the new name of “ miascite, —a 
rock in which, in addition to white felspar and black mica, the place of the quartz 
is taken by “ elaolite',” a mineral having a strong resemblance to quartz. All 
these rocks, which show passages from granite to syenite, and the “ weisstein of 
the Germans, are, we repeat, to be considered of plutonic origin ; and of this, indeed, 
M. Rose has afforded an independent proof, by showing that a mass of highly 
altered, granular limestone is singularly caught up and enveloped by them, on 
the summit of the Ilmen ridge, and is impregnated with apatite and other simple 
minerals 1 2 . 
Eastern Flanks of the Ural between Miask and Verch-Uralsk .— Included between 
the granitic and eruptive zone of the Ilmen Hills on the east, and the chief lidge or 
Ural-tau on the west, is included the prolongation of that metalliferous zone which 
has been just partially alluded to. r l his tract, watered by the i iver Miass, as it flows 
from south to north, is an undulating broad valley of rich pasture land, diversified 
on its western flank by the granitic hills of Tcliaskofski, a southern embankment of 
the Ilmen Hills, and on the west by the eruptive greenstones, greenstone porphyries 
and serpentine which have burst through the schists and other stratified deposits. 
It is very metalliferous, particularly on its western and southern portions, which 
we shall afterwards describe, in reference to its alluvial and auriferous detritus. 
In the mean time we shall merely state, that at seven versts to the south of Miask 
we met with a hard Encrinite limestone, on the banks of the stream, in which it was 
difficult to discover a persistent strike, though the beds upon the whole, range 
from north to south. At this spot, the eruptive rocks being less protruded, the 
fossiliferous limestone occupies a broader oasis than usual in the Soutl 
in following the river towards its sources, the calcareous matter disappears, and the 
surface is for the most part re-occupied by various igneous rocks, which use up in 
conical forms around the lake Aushkul. The opposite sketch is offered to convey 
an idea of the prevailing forms of the ground in the rich metalliferous tract around 
this lake. The rock in the foreground, on which we stood, is a compound of 
diallage and serpentine, and is to some extent magnetic ; the most striking of the 
conical mounts on the hill of Aushkul (or holy mount of the Bashkirs) , which rises 
to about 800 English feet above the lake 3 , being composed, together with the lesser 
1 Rose, Reise nach dem Ural, pp. 17, 98. 
* Rose, vol. ii. p. 69 et seq. 
1 Kupffer, Voyage dans l’Oural. 
3 L 
