Washington sentinel., 1898-08-06
- ~ SENTINEL
siberial It's Railway.

DuE the OnlkEu OLdACS WlllllA ANo
boundaries without touching the
edge anywhere, and fill up the
gaps and odd corners with all the
States of Europe west Of Russia.
1t is an enormous territory, in tact,
in which no one district can be
taken as representing the rest, so
that the most contradictory opin-
ions concerning it appear in books
according to the locality visited by
the writers. In a general way it
can be divided into three zones
running right across. To the
north, the Tundra, stretching in
land from the Arctic Sea, swampy
and treeless, ranging from $50 to
400 miles in width. Then the
Taiga, throwing its spurs north
ward along the river valleys, as in
its turn it is broken into by the
arabic lands to the south. This is
the Siberian forest. siberian pop
lars" says Mr.. J. Y. Simpson, in
"Si6e Lights on Siberia" "with
ash grey stem and quiVering
leaves; spruCes, with their regular
isOsoles triangled contour and
dark shading; giant larches tower
hove thair fetlo vvss ~SddI5 whose
peculiar branches are crowded
with knob-like punches OF green
needles; Scotch frs with cinnamon
colored upper trunks toning down
to sombre iron. grey; the Oriental
pitch pine, and, toward the out
skirts, birches with pure white
gentle stems, or moisture-loving
alder-these form the body, while
the padding is largely lett to the
small but graceful Siberian spruce.
with smoother bark and darker
leaves than the ordinary spruce
fir. 1t is a place Of gloom below
and silent conflict in mIdair." D."
Through it and the third zone Of
rich agricultural land on which it
borders runs the new railway that
is to open the country to colon
ization as the Canadian Pacific is
doing for Western Canada. This
wonderful railway, the longest
ever built by a Government, has
nothing to pay for its land, nothing
to pay for parliamentary expenses,
legal charges or compensation,
and is not expected TO yield a div
idend for a generation. And it
is estimated to cost about half as
much as the Lon'lon Great West
ern, and will be about twice as
long. The com 5arlson requires
considerable qualification to be of
much value but il is worth while
making, as showing the difference
between a railway in a poPulous
country and one running through
a wilderness.
The great project took about
forty years to think out, and was
not Of native origin. Soon after
Muraviev carried Russia to the
Pacific seaboard bv annexing the
mouths oil the Amur, an English
engineer offered to lay a tram road
across Siberia. In 1857 Collins the
American came forward with his
scheme of the Amur Railway
Company from Irkutsk to Chita,
which is to form part ofthe present
line. Next year three Englishmen,
Messrs. Morrison, Horn and
Sleigh, proposed to build a rail-
way from Moscow, through Mini
Novgorod to Tartar Bay. But in
their case, as in the others, nothing
was done beyond apolite acknowl-
edgment Of their suggestions,
vnyb bS~h ytsa-a a~~a-EsJ n @ &C. 1, -
to native energy. AS it had be-
come obvious that, as was only
natural and polite. the railway
would be entirely a Russian enter.
prise, foreigners ceased to apply,
and plan after plan was submitted
by Russian projectors until suffi-
cient information had been OBJ.
tanned to warrant the appointment
OF a special commisson, on whose
recommendation the European
lines were, in 1873, extended across
the Urals to Ekaterinburg, and
four years later to Tiumen, which
was at first intended to be the de-
parture point OF the route to the
Pacific. Further surveys were
then made, and the outcome vas
the railway now being built. which
was estimated 20 cost $50, 900, 900
roubles, and will almost certainly
cost more. Throughout its length
1t keeps well to the south, that for
military reasons it may skirt the
frontier, and tor commercial pur-
poses it may run through the rich
est country and cross the chief
rivers near their sources as they
are navigable. The main line
from St. Petersburg runs through
Moscow TO Riazan and thence on
wards, crossing the Volga at Sa-
mara and the Bielaya at Uia, TO
Mass down to Cheliabinsk, where
the Great Siberian begins. When
ti7c enterprise was under final con-
sideratIon the choice had to be
made between three routes, but as
all the three would inevitably meet
near Mini Udinsk. the shortest
that through Mass, and not
through Tiumen-was determined
upon.
The new line thus crossed the
Tobol al Kurgan, the Ishim at
Petropavlosk and the Irish at
Omsk, where the bridge is 100
yards long and the embankment
40 feet high. Itthen goes through
Kainsk, north OF Lake Chani, to
Kolivan, where il crosses the Obi
and turns northeastward to Atch-
Insk. From Cheliabinsk to Koli-
van it is fairly level and its first