GOLD MINES NEAR EKATERINBURG. 
477 
The chief fundamental rocks are talcose, chloritic schists and clay slates, like those 
which prevail around Ekaterinburg, and these have been cut through by parallel 
bands of a felspathic rock called “ beresite,” which M. Rose considers to be a 
decomposed granite, — a continuation, in fact, of the granites of the Shartash lake 
and Ekaterinburg (see Map). The band of “ beresite,” which bears, in truth, the 
aspect of a metalliferous lode, trends from north to south, and contains within it 
many veins of quartz, in which the gold occurs, and from which it is extracted 
both by vertical shafts and lateral galleries which have been made in the masses 
of the “ beresite.” On each flank of the lode, the talc schist in contact with the 
beresite is a reddish decomposing altered rock, called “ crassick ” by the workmen. 
In some parts of the works the quartz veins so multiply as almost to exclude the 
beresite, whilst some other or poorer veins traverse the mass diagonally and even 
from west to east. In contact with the quartz veins, the beresite is usually com- 
pact and hard, but at a little distance from them, that substance is usually in a 
form which would convey to the ordinary observer merely the idea of kaolin or 
decomposed felspar rock. No shaft has been sunk lower than twenty-eight 
fathoms, and no perceptible change was observed in the nature of the mineral 
substances at that depth ; but owing to the influx of water and the want of steam- 
engines, the works, at the period of our visit, were only carried on at a level of 
sixteen fathoms. 
Referring to the valuable details of M. Rose, both as respects the nature of the 
matrix and its imbedded minerals 1 , we thus briefly allude to the rock in situ, in 
order to explain how the alluvia which cover it, and which partake of the local 
character of all the Uralian detritus, should also be auriferous. The gold alluvium 
at this locality occupies a narrow depression in which a tiny stream called the 
Berezof meanders. The detritus reposing upon an irregular surface of the schistose 
Berezovsk 100 poods of gravel formerly gave from five to eight zolotniks ; but now the same quantity 
does not afford more than from one quarter to one-half of a zolotnik. The Magdalenski mine near Bo- 
goslofsk has been known to afford, in one year, as much as half a pound of gold in 100 poods, though in 
general the same quantity only produces one zolotnik ! 
There are 96 zolotniks in a Russian pound, which is equal to 14 oz. 7 dr. English avoirdupois. The Rus- 
sian pood, or 40 lbs. of that country, is consequently equal to 3G lbs. 2 oz. English avoirdupois. [See Tra- 
vaux de la Commission pour fixer les mesures et les poids de l’Empire dc Russie, rediges par A. Th 
Kupffer.] 
1 Besides the quartz, M. Rose enumerates tourmaline, talc crystals, pyrophyllite, bitter spar, iron py- 
rites, brown iron ore, needle ore (bismuth), grey copper, copper pyrites, sulphate of copper, carbonate of 
lead, vanadiate of lead, gold, &c. ; but of all these minerals quartz is much the most abundant. 
3 Q 
