SECTION OF THE IRENDYK RIDGE. 
453 
then we could discern, that low as this plateau is, in reference to the Irendyk 
ridge which we were approaching, it might be considered the mineral axis, if really 
composed, as we believe it to be, of the oldest rocks in this part of the chain. 
The Irendyk (continuation of PI. III. tig. 5.). — From the dull and spiritless pla- 
teau of Preobrajensk, composed of its grauwacke schists and grits, some of which, 
however, where not metamorphosed, have a good deal the aspect of the Silurian 
sandstone of England, we ascended steep and verdant slopes to the peaks of the 
Irendyk, which, in this parallel, constitutes the geographical axis of the South Ural, 
and separates the waters which flow eastwards into the river Ural, from those which 
run westwards into the Sakmara and Bielaya. This ridge is essentially eruptive, 
and its external forms are highly picturesque. It is made up of felspathic rocks 
which pass into greenstone, slaty porphyry and porphyritic breccia, and rise to 
above 3000 1 feet above the sea. We spent a night amid these peaks in the tents 
of the Bashkir chief Mohammed John 2 , who was encamped here for the summer 
pastures of his herds of mares and flocks of sheep, and offer a sketch of the scene 
which presented itself at day-break in this wild and richly-wooded mountain recess. 
On ascending to the summits, the chief of which at this point is called Katlantchik, 
we found them to consist of stratified compact felspar rock or eurite, which is in 
parts porphyritic, the whole having an appearance of bedding, the strata being 
either vertical or dipping 70° to east-south-east. A little lower on the eastern 
slope, the rocks are either granular felspathic trap, or greenstone porphyritic 
greenstone and grey porphyry, with pink felspar crystals ; in a word, the same 
group of eruptive rocks which we had met with in the adjacent valley of the Ural 
river, distant from the Irendyk about fifty versts. 
The most remarkable feature on this slope of the mountain ridge, is the infinite 
number of alternations or parallel bands of igneous rocks (porphyries) with jaspers 
and flinty schists, the former most frequently occupying low parallel ridges, the 
latter the interjacent depressions. During the brief moments at our disposal, we 
looked in vain for organic remains in these highly altered masses ; still, when fol- 
' Helmersen makes the culminating crest of this ridge 2942 French or 3135 English feet. 
* Our host, Mohammed John, who appears in the foreground of the opposite sketch, was a fine spe- 
cimen of a lusty Bashkir, with a capacious stomach well filled with Kumiss, or mares’ milk. In his tent 
(where we slept upon fresh-chopped fir-leaves) we were refreshed with excellent tea, whilst surrounded 
by numerous black skins filled with Kumiss, and ornamented chests, from which one of his wives un- 
packed his best crockery. In the annexed sketch of this camp, one Russian peasant is introduced as a 
contrast. The portly officer is a Russianized Bashkir. 
3 N 
