The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-08
GREAT WATERWAY
From the Baltic to the
Black Sea.
To Cost One Hundred Million Dol
lars and Take Five Years In
Completing.

| n recent FOrtnightIy Review con-
| tains paper on "Russia's Great Naval
| Enterprise; the Establishment of In
| tercourse between the Baltic and the
Black Sea- 1t is another reminder OF
| the colossal industrial undertakings to
which Russia is devoting her energies.
The Siberian railway, constructed at a
total cost of 400 million roubles, is no
sooner within sight of completion than
this gigantic waterway, which is to
cost e20,000,000 and to take five years,
at least, in construction, is designed.
From the writer's description it ap-
| pears that there is already water COM
| munication over most of the proposed
route. The waterway begins at Duna-
| munde in the Gulf of Riga. 1t ascends
| the Duna or Dwina, to Polotsk; it fol-
lows a canal which connects the Duna
and Beresina; it proceeds down the
Beresina TO it's confluence with the
Dnleper, and down the Dnieper to
EkaterinOSlav. There navigation is
at present interrupted by rapids for
about forty miles; and this tract offers
the chief engineering difficulty. The
Dnieper is navigable for the rest of the
way. The new waterway is to be twen-
ty-eight feet deep throughout-One foot
deeper than the SueZ Canal. The deep
ening of the Duna offers no serious
difficulty; nor driving deeper furrOw
through the marsh lands between the
Duna and the Beresina. The latter
river and also the Dnieper in parts will
have to be deepened. The one hundred
and fifty miles from Kiev to Ekateri-
nOslav are navigable by ships of heavy
draught; and the two hundred miles
from AleXandrovsk to Kherson admit
of the passage of vessels of moderate
draught. The new canal that will have
to be cut is that required alongside the
forty miles of Dnieper rapids between
EkaterinOslav and AleXandrOvsk. The
whole distance from the Baltic to the
Black Sea is nine hundred and ninety
four miles, or, roughly speaking, a
thousand miles. 1t will pass through
the ports of Riga, Minsk, Kiev, Kram
chug, Ekaterinoslav, Kherson.
On the strategic Importance of the
new waterway, the writer observes
that what the railway system is to
the army, this is to the navy. 1t will
enable Russia to concentrate her naval
strength in either the Baltic or Black
Seas, as occasion may require. He
asks:
Can we reasonably expect that. |
should opportunity occur, such as
would be furnished by a general Euro
pean war. for instance, she would not
avail herself of it to extend her water
way to the Mediterranean, via the
Black Sea and the BosphOrus? The
BOSphorus is, in more than one sense,
a continuation of what will be the
great naval waterway, for the entrance
to the former will be just opposite to
the exit from the latter; and it is a
geographical, or, rather, photographic
cal, fact that the influx of fresh water
into the BOSphOrus is due to currents
that cross the Black Sea direct from
the mouths of the great Russian rivers. |
There is no knowing when Russia will
not be in a position to promote a Eu-
rOpean cOnfiict-fOr while the peace
doctrine is preached abroad it is vigOr-
ously suppressed at home under |
such circumstances, the inter-cOmmu- |
nication between her northern and
southern naval establishments will |
enable her to muster all her available
battleships in the Black Sea, almost
before the powers realize her object.
1t would be going beyond facts to
assert that this undertaking will make
Russia a great naval power; but it will
at least strengthen her position, and,
while she will be a constant menace to
it will render her prac-
tically unassailable in her own waters.