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The article provides a review of Johann Friedrich Bluher’s activities as a prospector, mining engineer, assayer and metallurgist during his search for ferrous and non-ferrous metal ores in Russia. Bluher visited all the regions of the Russian state with existing metal industry. He also searched for mineral deposits in territories where such kind of works had not been previously performed. The author calls attention to his works on iron and copper ores’ prospecting in Olonets region and to his expedition to Bolshaya Kabardin Plain for silver and copper ores. We use records of Berg and Manufaktur Kollegiia (Mining board and Manufactory board) for the interpretation of events. We note the diversity of assessment of Bluher’s activities by his contemporaries and historians of the 21th century.

We have found records on the drawing of the map of Ivan-ozero (Ivan lake) and the upper course of the River Don dated 1701 in the archive of Razriadnyi prikaz, RGADA. These records are the earliest evidence of mapping of the region of Don in its upper course at the moment. We outline the circumstances of drawing of a plan. We reconstruct geographic information of the plan according the revealed description. We compare data of the description to data from later cartographic sources. We conclude that sizes and distances reported in the description are reliable data. We surmise about the authorship of the plan.

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The paper presents data on the ore and the location known to the ore-finders working in the vicinity of Tula in the 1st half of the 18th century. The archival document of the year 1733 (the list compiled by Demidov), the list of types of iron ores of the area, was found and used as a material for the investigation. We specify that the majority of titles of iron ores were associated with the sites of ore occurrence. The inference can be made that the geological surveying and mining were carried out intensively. The paper presents an investigation of the question whether miners and iron makers had linked together the qualities of the discovered ore and the quality of iron or not. The classification of the list (of types of iron ore of the area) was compared to the classifications of Russian and Norwegian authors of the 18th century. We cite data from other records. We underline that the work of ore-finders was successful, average lifetime of some mines was about 100 years. The results of the study can be used in interpretation of the results of archeological studies.