The "Russian Table"

This little table is made of rosewood in a style that can be definitely identified as English, William IV, which dates it to the 1830's. The hinged top contains a grid of polished stones; opening the lid reveals a set of labels hand-written in an old-fashioned Cyrillic script. The labels show the names of the stones and the approximate locations in which they were found, all on the eastern side of the Ural mountains. There is also some sort of catalogue number, which makes it seem that the stones were originally part of a larger collection. The puzzle is to explain how stones from a Russian collection came to be displayed in a piece of furniture made in England.

The table originally belonged to A. B. Granville, a successful doctor who practiced in London 1840-70. He had some Russian patients and even spent several months in St. Petersburg in 1827 as family physician in the service of Count Woronzov. (At the time Britain and Russia enjoyed very close relations, having recently been allies in the wars against Napoleon.) It could easily be that the table was a souvenir of this visit. Maybe the stones were brought back to London, complete with labels, and then used to make the table. Alternatively, the stones could have been mounted in a display panel in Russia and this panel subsequently used as a table top with the base made to fit, in London. This idea is supported by the fact that on many of the labels can be seen ruled pencil margins, matching the wooden frame holding the stones. This would be expected if the labels were intended to be seen in the frame, which has to cover up the edges. The pencil lines would be ruled on the blank labels to show the part which would still be visible in the frame. (Of course, lines could have been drawn in later but then they would all be exactly parallel to the wood and at the same distance, which is not the case.)

The picture shows the arrangement of the stones in the table top and the names on the labels are translated below.

Porphyry	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Hornstone	Jasper	Mountain Flint	Jasper
Jasper	Porphyry	Flint	Jasper	Flint	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper
Porphyry	Agate	Granite	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Porphyry
Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Hornstone	Spar	Porphyry	Porphyry	Jasper
Hornstone	Granite	Jasper	Chalcedony	Jasper	Flint	Quartz	Agate
Jasper	no label	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Jasper	Porphyry	Jasper

Of these, Agate, Chalcedony, Flint, Hornstone and Jasper are closely related minerals, all being microcrystalline quartz with small proportions of other materials which give the characteristic colours. Being microcrystalline they are porous and so capable of taking up water-soluble dyes, though all these specimens have their natural colours. Chalcedony is faintly bluish; Jasper, with the highest proportion of other materials, often red. Banded structures are formed by periodic crystallization.

Quartz has large crystals; in this specimen they are clear and uncoloured. The specimen looks white in the picture because of the reflections from internal interfaces between the crystals. "Spar" is a general term for any mineral which shows easy cleavage (splitting along crystalline planes); the internal fractures reflect light and so again this specimen looks white in the photograph.

Granite is quite different - an igneous rock in which on cooling crystals of mica and quartz have separated out from the feldspar matrix. The name "porphyry" derives from the Greek word for purple and was originally applied to a type of igneous rock found in Egypt, though the name is no longer used by geologists.

It is curious that there is no sample of malachite, the green copper ore which was highly valued for decorative stonework and which mainly came from the Urals. (Indeed, one of the locations is described as near a copper mine.) Possibly these specimens were part of a larger collection.

My thanks go to Paul Pollak for his enthusiastic help translating the labels. This example is fairly typical.

	Яшма. Оренбургскй губернїи отъ крљпости уклы каргайской въ 10^т вестуах отъ озера уклы въ 3^иъ верст	Jasper. Of Orenburg province, 10 verst from the Ukli Kargaiska fortress, 3 verst from lake Ukla.
	Note the use of the characters ї and љ, dropped from the Russian alphabet after the revolution.	(All distances are given in verst, roughly one kilometre.)

The locations described run from Orsk up the eastern edge of the Ural mountains to Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) and on to Verkhotur'ye. Orenburg province was on the frontier of the Russian empire (hence the many fortresses) and there would have been few roads and no railways. The map below shows the locations that I have been able to identify. The order follows the "catalogue" numbering, which clearly starts with rocks from the most southerly locations and works northwards.

The map below covers a large area, about 400 by 600 miles, enough to show the whole of the United Kingdom. It does not seem likely that the stones were collected during a single expedition; more likely they were part of a collection.

Orenburg province:

6 verst from the Guberlya fortress, by the spring flowing out of the mountain into the river Ural.
7 verst from the Orsk fortress opposite the beacon by the river Or'
on the Kirgiz steppe, 9 verst from the Orsk fortress upstream on the river Or', following the flow on the left bank.
(Kirgiz here means Kazakh, the nomadic people living south of the Ural river, who were progressively subjugated by the Russian empire during the 18th century.)
4 verst from the Orsk fortress up the river Ural in the ravine.
from the Orsk fortress over the Kalpak redoubt, 20 verst.
from the Kalpak to the Irintitsky redoubt, across 14 verst.
Irintitsky can be identified with the Irendyk range, the easternmost foothills of the Urals, just to the east of the Tanalyk river.
at the end of the Irintitsky mountains, short of them by two verst, in mount Balshatau
up the course of the Tanalyk stream on the right bank near the Bashkir village of Isyanev.
near the Bashkir village of Yunaev, in the mountain called Kur Yatmas.
near the village of Naurusova, 136 sazhen from the river Ural in 3 places.
(one sazhen = 7 feet; it is curious that this one distance is given so precisely.)
3 verst from the Bashkir village called Kutya, in mount Tyotyobya.
10 verst from the Ukli Kargaiska fortress, 3 verst from lake Ukla.
(Modern maps show the Karagai hills, east of the river Ural.)
from the village of Kalkansky at 2 verst, near lake Kalkan.
2 verst from the village of the old "sotnik" Muynak.
(Sotnik = commander of 100 Cossacks)
from the village of the old sotnik follow 2½ verst along the road to the village of Saferov.
from the Sanarsky fortress 15 verst along the road to the Nizhno Uvel' settlement, by the Rasota stream.
near Askarovo village by lake Ranal and a smallish mountain.
Bashkir village of Malakaev, near lake Alagul.
7½ verst from the village of Kaskina in the mountain called Berkut.
from the village of Kundravy to the Sadskoy works 27½ verst, near mount Tumaskal.
from the village of Kundravy 30 verst in a big mountain along the Maealov road.
from the village of Kundravy, follow past the Miass works for 28 verst, on the summit of mount Tash Tau.
from the Miass works on the old road to the Zlatoust works, 7 verst in mount Beresovaya.

Perm province, Ekaterinburg district:

along the road to Kurganov 5 verst from the village of Makarov, from Ekaterinburg 32 verst.
1½ verst from the Pyshminsk gold-washing works, 24 verst from Ekaterinburg.
4 verst from the village of Ayatskoe along the road to the Burnashev fields.
settlement of Ayatskoe, in the copper mine 1 verst from the village of Osinovka.
from the Rezhev works cross the river Rezh to the lake Ozerny 20 verst, 2 verst from the lake.
from the village of Sarapul, 1 verst upstream on the Anbarka stream.

Perm province, Verkhotursk district:

12 verst from the village of Korelin in the mountain over the river Tura.
6 verst from the village of Trubina in the iron mine-workings