EASTERN GRANITIC STEPPES ALL PAL.EOZOIC OR ERUPTIVE. 
Regaining the same parallels of granitic and schistose rocks, with limestone, 
which we had before traversed, we thence passed over granitic zones on our route 
to Yerch-Uralsk (see Map, PI. VII. and Section, PI. IV.). One of these, lying 
to the east of Stepnaya, rises into several cheese-shaped knolls, not unlike the 
Cornish tors, and on examination this rock proved also to have a laminated struc- 
ture, somewhat resembling other granites before described. This rock is succeeded 
on the west by micaceous schists, having a north and south strike. To the west 
of Stepnaya points of greenstone appear; and near the station of Kidysh, slaty, 
grey limestones, evidently palaeozoic, and probably either of Devonian or carboni- 
ferous age (for they are quite on the strike of Cossatchi-datchi) , having also a noi th 
and south direction, are included between the greenstone on the east, and a second 
ridge of granite on the west. Schistose and talcose strata, with courses of “ schaal- 
stein ” and bands of white quartz follow, and the whole of this stratified series is 
flanked on the west by a still more important ridge of intrusive rocks, which 
having a syenitic character in one part becomes a true granite on the west, as 
seen at the station of Karagaisk. 
This lateral excursion into Siberia, like that of the Issetz (p. 361), was made in 
order to ascertain, if these lower eastern regions differed materially from the Ural 
Mountains. We came back convinced, that to whatever extent the intruding rocks 
maybe lithologically distinguished from those in the crest of the chain, the original 
fundamental rocks of this part of Siberia are members of the same palaeozoic series 
as those of the Ural ; the essential difference consisting in the more profuse de- 
velopment of granite in the lower than in the higher region. In a word, each of 
the narrow granitoid or trappaean ridges of the Siberian or Kirghis steppes, is but 
a miniature representation of the Ural, to which range they neaily all preserve a 
parallelism, accommodating their direction to each variation of its line of bearing. 
Though deprived of organic evidences for wide distances (and how are they to be 
found in a rapid journey?), their occurrence at Troitsk on the one hand, and at 
Cossatchi-datchi on the other, in strata which at both places are associated on to 
similar metamorphic and intrusive rocks, affords a clear demonstration, that how- 
ever we are incapable of dividing it into systems, the original subsoil of all these 
regions belongs to the palaeozoic sera. 
This view is corroborated bv the sketch which is given by Colonel Helmersen 
and his associate Captain Tchaikovsky, of the structure of the region to the south 
of that which has been just alluded to. Beyond Stepnaya, the granite, which may 
