ORIGIN OF PLATINUM AND GOLD. 
485 
all the platinum is finely and equally diffused in the proportion of 1 in 200 of a mass 
which is made up of fragments of greenstone and serpentine, but chiefly of the 
latter. Moreover, the fragments of serpentine associated with the platinum are 
positively saturated with its predominant associate chromate of iron, and though as 
yet no platinum has been recognized in the rock, M. Le Play contends, that it must 
be imperceptibly diffused through a mass whose disintegration yields this ore. 
Such data, including those afforded by Humboldt 1 and Rose, certainly afford fair 
grounds for presuming, that the platinum in these localities (the most remarkable 
in Russia) must have been diffused through the rock, just as we now know that in 
large ti’acts of Siberia gold is also diffused. Still, all these facts cannot induce 
us to change our opinions respecting a heterogeneous mass of platiniferous alluvia 
which we have ourselves seen on the eastern slopes of the Ural, between Kushvinsk 
and Turinsk, where fragments of greenstone, porphyry, jasper, &c. are mixed with 
fossiliferous limestone, and grains of quartz and magnetic iron ore. The phseno- 
mena, therefore, at the Demidoff works of platinum ore, can by no means be 
assumed as applying generally to the origin of that metal. Colonel Helmersen 
has, indeed, distinctly stated, that grains of platinum have been extracted from 
quartzose veins in the “ Beresite,” which are loaded with gold, and he properly 
insists upon that as a known source of platinum 2 . We are therefore disposed to 
think, that the ore of platinum has been formed in the rocks pretty much in the 
same manner and at the same period as gold, sometimes in veins, though perhaps 
even more commonly by diffusion through the mass. Being a much rarer mineral 
than gold, it is of course to be expected that a greater difficulty should prevail in 
accurately defining the origin of platinum ; the more so, when its cost of production, 
and the few uses to which it can be beneficially applied, have led to the abandon- 
ment of nearly all the Uralian works, except those kept in activity by the Demidoff 
family. 
Other Gold Alluvia on the Eastern Flank of the Chain . — For an account of many 
of the numerous sites of gold worked along the east flank of the Ural, besides that 
1 See Humboldt, Asie Centrale, tom. i. p. 517, where Baron Humboldt suggested this idea. “ L’ab- 
sence totale,” says he, “ du quartz dans les lavages qui renferment le platine seul a Nijni Tagilslc, est un 
fait tenement important, que l’on se demande si le peu de platine qui est mele h toutes les alluvions au- 
riferes appartient exclusivemcnt a la meme source, a une dissemination primitive dans la serpentine avec fer 
chromate, ou si Ton doit admettre que dans les lavages tres pauvres en platine le metal a ete originaire- 
ment reuni a l’or dans les filons de quartz meme, qui ont traverse les schistes talqueux et chloritiques." 
4 Reise nach dein Ural, 2 Abth. p. 212. 
