CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE. — COSSATCHI-DATCHI. 
439 
before the line was extended southwards and eastwards, as at the present day 1 . It, 
whilst in the heart of the metamorphic rocks of the Ural, we could recognise but 
feeble indications of animal forms in strata which once must have been charged 
with them, we rejoiced, on arriving in this little eastern tract, to find that it was 
one of the very richest of the palaeozoic oases which had been spared from the 
devastation of ancient geological records, caused by the numerous outbursts ot 
igneous matter in these regions. Even here, indeed, the little “ preserve” we 
are about to describe, is absolutely surrounded by eruptive rocks. On the west 
rises a sharp ridge of greenstone, serpentine, &c., which may be considered a 
southern prolongation of the Kumatsh, which extends north-eastwards to Miask, 
whilst on the east are rounded trappsean hills of compact felspar rock. Near to the 
lormer is a lower hill called Serbaifsk, composed of schist with quartz veins, and 
below it, under the streamlet Schertim, are established works for gold washings, ot 
which hereafter. For a few hundred paces to the east of this establishment is an 
alluvial plain in which the Schertim wanders, whence a mass ol highly inclined stra- 
tified rock protrudes, which on its western face, or towards the point of disturbance, 
is of a schistose, chloritic character, much impregnated with hornblende, and towards 
the east becomes calcareous, and is then undistinguish able from a true schaalstein. 
In this rock we did not, in our hasty visit, succeed in discovering organic remains ; 
but we consider it of Devonian age, because it is immediately flanked and overlaid 
by limestone, loaded with carboniferous fossils. This limestone occupies a plateau 
slightly raised above the adjacent brook, of perhaps about 100 acres in area, the 
surface of which, covered by a very scanty herbage, exhibits the limestone in a 
multitude of little hummocks, whose outline may be compared to that ol a troubled 
s ea, as represented in this woodcut. 
Trapp scan Hills. 
Hillocks of carboniferous limestone. 
1 Cossatch.-datchi is on the old line or frontier of the Kirghis, which passed thence along the Ural to 
Orsk. The new Cossack line is much advanced, and passes from Troitsk direct across the steppes to 
Orsk (see Map). 
3 L 2 
