432 
GOLD MINE OF PESHANKA NEAR BOGOSLOFSK. 
can be little doubt that these precious stones were originally formed in different 
parts of the world in sedimentary deposits not more ancient than those which con- 
stitute the flanks of the Ural chain. We may add, that as carbonaceous grits of 
the Devonian and Carboniferous periods exist, it is very easy to conceive, how these 
masses, like other sediments to which we have previously alluded, have been trans- 
muted into the quartzose micaceous schists which occur in this chain, and how the 
diamonds have been derived from them and deposited in the auriferous gravel 1 . 
Peshanka Gold Mine near Bogoslofsk . — After this short digression, we now return 
to the east flank of the chain. The gold alluvia of the rich mine of Peshanka, like 
those of Berezovsk, occur on both sides of a small rivulet, which meanders through 
a depression between the copper mines of Turyinsk and the river Kakva. The 
chief underlying rock is greenstone, and the gold sands situated immediately upon 
it are the richest. As no fragments of quartzose veinstones have ever been found 
here, the gold grains being simply collected by washing the finer sandy gravel, 
it has been supposed, that the gold is diffused throughout the subjacent rock, 
which, according to M. Karpinski, who then directed the mine, was in part a sye- 
nite. We were even told, that upon analysis this last-mentioned rock had been 
found to contain gold. As far as we could judge from appearances, the surface 
was covered by large blocks of syenite lying in the sand and gravel, which as in 
other places was covered with clay, in which the bones of mammoth, rhinoceros, 
&c. had been found, chiefly near the mouth of this little valley. Most of the 
gold has been extracted near the centre of the detrital mass, whose maximum 
thickness is about seven feet, and which is clearly divisible, as elsewhere, into 
two parts, viz. overlying clay and shingle, and auriferous sand beneath. On the 
whole, the inspection of this locality led us to believe, that the gold had been dif- 
fused through the subjacent rock, and that the auriferous epoch, or the close of it, 
was marked by the scouring and denudation of the surfaces of the rock so impreg- 
Madras, 1841. Some of these tracts appear to resemble very much in composition the axis of the Ural. 
See also Lieut. Newbold’s papers on the gold and diamonds in various parts of India, J ourn. Royal Asiatic 
Soc. 1843, pp. 203—226. 
1 We cannot, for the reasons before assigned, participate in the idea partially alluded to by M. Rose, and 
cited in the Appendix to Baron Humboldt’s work, that the diamonds of Chrestovodsvisgensk may have 
had their origin in the black dolomite of that place ; for although that rock has been shown to contain 
carbon, the alluvia in which the diamonds were found, though overlying the dolomite, exhibit no portions 
of it. We agree with Colonel Helmersen, that the diamonds, like the gold shingle and the major part of 
the accompanying detritus, have been drifted from the adjacent flank of the higher mountains, in which 
micaceous quartz rocks exist, fragments of them (itacolumite) being also found in the alluvium. 
