CHAPTER XXVIII - JOURNEY TO ASIA

Summary

No detailed narrative has yet been published of Humboldt's journey to Asiatic Russia; and the only sources of authentic information on the subject are to be found in a work lately printed at Paris, under the title of Fragmens de Géologie et de Climatologie Asiatiques, par A. de Humboldt, from which the following particulars are extracted:—

This illustrious traveller, accompanied by MM. Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, embarked at Nijnei-Novgorod on the Volga, and descended to Kasan and the Tartar ruins of Bolgari. From thence he went by Perm to Jekatherinenburg on the Asiatic side of the Uralian Mountains,—a vast chain composed of several ranges running nearly parallel to each other, of which the highest summits scarcely attain an elevation of 4593 or 4920 feet, but which, like the Andes, follows the direction of a meridian, from the tertiary deposites in the neighbourhood of Lake Aral to the greenstone rocks in the vicinity of the Frozen Sea. A month was occupied in visiting the central and northern parts of these mountains, which abound in alluvial beds containing gold and platina, the malachite mines of Goumeschevskoi, the great magnetic ridge of Blagodad, and the celebrated deposites at Mourzinsk, in which topaz and beryl are found. Near Nijnei-Tagilsk, a country which may be compared to Choco in South America, a mass of platina weighing about 21½ pounds troy has been found.