The herald., 1898-08-07
SIBERIA'S GREAT ROAD
MOST REMARKABLE ENGINEER
ING FEAT OF THE CENTURY
FIRST FULL DESCRIPTION
Where the Monster Track Runs, How
It Is Built and the Work Yet
to Be Done

ne name OIL SIBERIA Will SOOH Su5SeSb
something besides frozen wastes, suffering
convicts and semi-barbarism. Civilizaton,
as Russia knows it, has stretched forth a
hand in the shape of railroad throug n n
the neglected land, and the lovely region is
to be peopled by immigrants sent there by
the government. The building of this road
means great deal to the world Russian
aggression has been more persistent since
the work neared accomplishment Britain
has jealously watched its progress with an
eye to the strengthening Of her Indian Dor
der defenses, and Asiatic nations nave
looked fearfully forward to trouble Wlth
the Russian bear, now that the railroad has
bridged the gulf between them and the
home of the czar. 1t will be seen, there
fore that the following article, the first to
describe in full the great engineering feat
that is fraught with so much meaning to
the world, is at this time of especia! IN
terest.
ST. PETERSBURG, July O.-(Special
Correspondence to The Herald). In the
whole of Siberia there are not many more
people than there are in Greater New York,
and yet you might put all the United States
within its 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 terri
tory, in fact, in which no one district can
he taken as representing the rest, so that
the most contradictory opinions concerning
it appear in books according to the locaii-
ties visited by the writers.
In a general way 1t can be divided into
three zones running right across. To the
north the Tundra, stretching inland from
the Arctic sea. swampy and treeless, rang
ing from $50 to 400 miles in width. Then the
Taiga, throwing its spurs northward along
the river valleys. as in Its turn 1t is broken
;ptA 10 To-, I. It'll, l.
the Siberian forest. SIBERIAN poplars. -
says Mr.. J. Y. Simpson. with ash-gray
stem and quivering leaves; spruces, with
their regular isosceles triangle contour
and dark shading; giant lart hes, towering
above their fellows; cedars, whose pecu-
liar branches are crowded with knob-lke
punches of green needles: Scotch frs, with
cinnamon-colored upper trunks, toning
down to somber iron gray; the oriental
pitch pine. and, toward the outskirts,
birches with pure white gentle stems, or
moisture-loviug alder-these form the
body, while the padding is largely left to
the small but graceful Siberian spruce .
with smoother bark and darker leaves than
the ordinary spruce fir. 1t is place of
gloom below and silent conflict in mid air
Through 1t and the third zone of rich agr!-
cultural land on which it borders runs the
new railway that is to open up the coutry
to colonization, as the Canadian Pacific is
doing for western Canada.
This wonderful railway, the longest ever
built by government, has nothing to pay
for Its land, nothing to pay for parliament
airy expenses, legal charges or compensa
ton, and is not expected to yield dvi-
dend for a generation.
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 by annexing the mouths
of the Amur, an English engineer offered
to lay a tram road across Siberia. In 1877
Collins, the American, came forward with
his scheme of the Amur Railway company.
from Irkutsk to Chita, which is to form
part of the present line Next year three
Englshmen, Messrs. Morrison, Horn AMI
Sleigh, proposed to build railway from
Moscow, through Mini Novgorod, to Tar
TAR bay. But in their case, as in the others.
nothing was done beyond a polite acknowl
edgment heir suggestions. which were
accepted stimulants to native energy.
AS it had become obvious that, as was
only natural and polite, the railway would
be entirely a Russian enterprise, foreign
ers ceased to apply, and plan after plan
was submitted by Russian projectors, until
sufficient information had been obtained to
warrant the appoint tment of a special COM
mission on whose recommendation the Eli
ropean lines WERE in 1878, extended across
the Trails to Ekaterinburg, and four wears
later to Tiumen. which was at first intend
cd to be the departure point of the route to
the Pacific. Further surveys were then
made, and the outcome was the railway
now being built, which was estimated tc
cost $50 100000 rubes, and will almost GER
tainly cost more
Throughout its length it keeps well to the
SOUTH that for military reasons 1t may
skirt the frontier, and for commercial pur-
poses 1t may run through the richest coun-
try and cross the chief rivers as near their
sources as they are navigable The main
line from St. Petersburg runs through Mos
COW to RiaZan, and thence onward cross
ing the VolSa at Samara and the Bie,aNa
at Ufa, to Mass, and down to Cheliabnsk
where the Great Siberian begins When
the enterprise was under final consdera-
ton the choice had to be made between
three routes; but as all the three would in
evitably meet near Mini Udinsk, the short
est-that through Mass, and not that
through Tiumen-was determined on
The new line thus crosses the Tobol at
Kurgan, the 1shim At petropavlosk and the
Irish at Omsk, where the bridge n 700
yards long and the embankment forty feet
high It then goes through Kainsk, north
of Lake Chani, to Kolivan, where it crosses
the Obi and turns northeastward to Atch-
insk. Beyond Atchinsk the country is
mountainous and the road is one long suc
cession of cuttings. embankments ann
bridges over ravines.
The Great Siberian, for the purpose of
organization, bears different names in DIFF
ferent portions of its center. From Cho-
liabinsk to the Obi it is the Western ST.
berian; from Obit to Irkutsk it is the Mid
die Siberian; from Irkutsk to Mysovskaya
it is the Baikal; from Mysovskaya to Sire
tensk it is the Transb baikal; thence to Kha
baravka 1t is the Amur, and then follow
the North Ussuri to Vladivostock The
Baikal Is the central line; east of 1t the
works were begun at Vladivostock most of
it they began at Chelia binsk, and west
ward and eastward to it the lines are being
brought so that it will be the connecting
link.
In 1891 and 1899 the West Siberian and
South ussuri were begun; in 1893 the Cen
trail Siberian was taken In hand; in 1899 the