GOLD ALLUVIA ALONG THE EAST FLANK OF THE URAL. 
479 
stream, which in itself is wholly incompetent even to wear out its own course in 
these masses of ancient and pre-existing debris. 
We did not visit a twentieth part of the gold workings of the Ural, some of which 
occur much higher up towards the axis of the chain, others further removed from 
it than those of Berezovsk, and we must point to the map for many of these po- 
sitions, in all of which the alluvial phsenomena are more or less the same as those 
above mentioned, the detritus being invariably derived either from the rocks in situ 
or from the adjacent higher hills. We shall, in the sequel, describe other exam- 
ples of exactly similar sepulture of the bones of the mammoth in the South Ural, 
and in the mean time we may say a very few words on the extension of the aurife- 
rous zone to the north. 
Gold-bearing alluvia have been found at various spots nearly all along the eastern 
flank of the chain, both in the lateral, or north and south, and in the transverse, or 
east and west valleys, formed amid the rocks which w r e have formerly described. 
These auriferous alluvia, notably rich along the zone where greenstones, porphy- 
ries and serpentines have traversed ancient limestones, have been followed by the 
Russian miners to the north of Petropavlosk, between which place and Berezovsk 
the excavations and works have been numerous. Around the Zavods of Nijny 
Tagilsk and Blagodat, and even extending to the western talus of the watershed, 
these gold alluvia have been considerably worked in those parallels, and in some 
instances, the ore of platinum is formed in the very same masses. In reference to 
the works depending on Nijny Tagilsk it may be stated, that the zone which ranges 
close along the western side of the crest of the chain is poor in gold, the particles 
of which are associated with chromate of iron and platinum, and are supposed to 
have been derived from the hornblende and metamorphic rocks which there rise 
up to form the axis. The richest band is that which runs from north to south, a 
little to the east of Laisk, whilst two other but poorer zones occur in the mine- 
ralized low ridges, still further east, or at forty and sixty versts from Nijny Tagilsk. 
In this parallel of latitude, therefore, the gold-bearing detritus is found, at intervals, 
and in zones, extending from north to south over a country near 100 versts in 
width, and is everywhere made up of fragments of the metamorphic and eruptive 
rocks of the region, and most frequently in portions of quartz veins. Varying in 
thickness and importance, according to the original depression or cavities in which 
they have been deposited, these materials lie at all levels, the little modern streams 
having had no sort of influence in accumulating them. 
3 q 2 
