The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-11
CANAL ACROSS RUSSIA.
Great Project for Uniting the Baltic
and Black Seas.
St. Petersburg Correspondence Washington



st. Petersburg Correspondence Washington
Post.
Russia's disarmament proposition and the
war talk which keeps all Europe busy just
immense Russian undertaking has been
kept from the outside world though it is so
enormous in its possible results that it may
mean revolution in industrial conditions
in Europe and indeed in the whole world
and a complete change in the naval pro-
gramme of the powers.
The project is nothing less than a ship
canal across the empire which shall con-
meet the Baltic sea with the Black sea, so
that the largest battle ships pass
through 1T at reasonable speed. Great as the
plan is, it is so simple in its engineering
aspects and also from a financial view
point that the only wonder is that the work
has not been done long ago. Though the
waterway will be ten times as long as the
Suez canal, the territorial conditions are so
favorable and the existing waterways are
so large, and Deep and convenient in their
natural direction that only about a hundred
and fifty miles of the one thousand miles
will be need to be dug, and comparatively
little dredging will be required to complete
the availability of the natural waterways.
The least width of this great ship canal
is to be little more than 213 feet at water
level and ia feet at the bottom. The depth
will be 2912 feet, uniformly. The Baltic sea
terminus of the ship canal is to be the port
of Riga. Riga is on the mouth of the
Dvina river, which is navigable for many
miles from its mouth. The channel of the
DVina will be used for the canal as far as
Wlere an afIlnclal canal Will
branch off across the Lepel watershed and
into the Beresina river, a continent of the
Dneiper, the third largest river in Europe
Here there is little work, except dredging,
necessary and the canal builders will util-
ize the course of the Beresina to the Dneiper
river, meeting the latter stream somewhere
near Lvief Then the Dneiper channel will
be followed to its mouth on the Black sea,
where the port of Kheerson now is.
The Typographical conditions are so ia
vorable that the canal needs only two locks,
one at each terminus, and the soil of al
most the whole territory through which the
canal will pass is of the best possible char
acter, being clay of exceptional consist
ency and Of such good quality that the
bricks and much other necessary material
can be manufactured as the work proceeds
from the earth which is dug up.
Five years is the time which it is call
culated will be necessary to complete the
work and open the canal for shipping. The
cost is estimated at only a0000,000 rubles,
or $154O0O,O00 or about one-half that at the
recent valuation in American gold of the
fuctuating ruble. Besides the two terminal
ports flfteen inland ports are to be created
from cities that are almost totally isolated
a present The canal will practically give
them the Importance of coast cities, for in
each it Is planned to construct harbor ia
ciities in which the largest cean-going
VesFeis can lie at anchor and take and dis
charge cargo without interfering with the
commerce of the canal.
The engineers who have been planning
this great Russian waterway estimate that
the largest ship can steam through it at the
rate of six knots an hour. and thus go from
the Black sea to the Baltic in a little less
than seven days. TIE branches of the
Dnleper, most OF which are deep and wide.
can be opened as feeding canals and thus
an immense inland territory of Russia will
be opened to the outer world.
Perhaps the most direct interest for
Americans is in the fact that this ship
canal will open a cheap and quick route of
transportation to wheat growers and pc
reach the Baltic and the Mediterranean
with equal facility and economy and thus
supply Asia and Europe and Africa more
quickly and economically than the Ameri-
cans. The canal passes through the best
petroleum territory.
The Russian navy will gain immeasur-
Its fleets are separated hOpelesSly now
The Black sea fleet is shut in by the
Dardanelles. and could not make connec-
tion with the Mediterranean fleet except
by breaking through. Even if the two did
manage to combine in that way they would
be penned in sea, both ends of which are
held by Great Britain, Gibraltar command
ing one and the Suez canal the other.
With the canal the entire question in .ime
OF war would resolve itself into a question
or commanding the Dardanelles, with an
immense advantage on the side of the Rus
slams, owing to the facility with which they
could send ships, ammunition and men to
the scene.
Should the Black sea fleet, on the other
hand, be menaced by a victorious enemy
the canal would save it. For where the ships
row would be locked up helpleSSly, with the
canal they could steam into the Baltic
in a week and refight or carry on offensive
operations on hostile northern coasts long
before the fleet which menaced them in the
south could steam through the Mediter-
ranean and meet them in the North sea-
In addition to this the Russians almost
have completed their work on their new
ice free harbor in the Baltic, which will
offer q safe inner port for their northern
navy. 1t is within striking distance of the
most eastern German coast fertilization
and with Riga well fortified the Baltic COAST
of Russia will be impregnable and a steady
menace to all the other powers