The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-21
WEIRD LAKE BAIKAL.
HOIV IT HAMPERS THE MOVE.
 MENT OF RUSSIAN TROOPS,

It Boasts or Many LegendS-On One oh
 the Islands Human Sacrifices Were
 at One Time Made to the Evil Spirit
 BegdOzI.
 The strength of chain is precisely
 the strength of it's weakest link, and
 on the same principle the transporting
 power of the Trans-siberian railway is
 limited by the number of men and the
 bulk of supplies which is possible to
 move across Lake Baikal. That large
 and stormy body of water is the weak
 est of many weak links in the immense
 chain of steel that stretches from Mos
 cow to Port Arthur and Vladivostok.
 It was all very well for the Czar to order a railway line to run from Eu- rope to the Pacific as nearly as possi-
 ble in a bee line, but Lake Baikal stood
 in the way From an engineering point of view it presented greater difficulties
 than all the rest of the line, and the
 Russian engineers frankly confess that
 they do not yet see how they are going
 to get over these difficulties.
 I-dlNC Ddlhdl III llAC lell s N'e II NSA- VI
 ter lake in the Old World, with the sole
 exception of Lake Victoria Nyanza, in
 Central Africa, and it is only surpass-
 ed in America by Lake Superior, Mich igan and Huron Its superficial area is
 34,179 square kilometers (nearly 15,OOO
 square miles), and it's surface is over i 1, 800 feet above sea level, ringed around by chain or rugged mountains.
 The Trans-Siberian railway runs up against the shore of this lake at point
 where it is about 40 miles wide, and to
 get around it means a detour of nearly
 200 miles over ground which makes rail-
 road engineers tear their hair in des-
 pair.
 Cost of Going Around the Lake. Several schemes have been proposed for continuing the line around the shore of the lake; but the cheapest of them, which is now being carried out is esti-
 mated to cost over 25,OO0,000 rubies. If l it is like the rest of the Trans-Siberian
 railway is will cost twice as much as 1 the estimate. Several tunnels have to l be cut through the solid rock of the mountains and one of them is nearly l four versts long.
 | The Russian Ministry of Ways and l Communication officially stated, in the spring of 1902, that the survey for the. l line around the southern end of Lake
 Baikal has just been completed, after four years hard work The object of tie survey was to trace out the most suitable route for line of railway 1 from Irkutsk to the village of Kultuk, +o1 of inc 1 lake, as from Kultuk to the station of l Mysovaya, on the Trans-Baikal rail- l way, there are no difficulties to be en- countered. Of the four suggested di- rectio to be taken by the line, the Ministry of Ways and Communication rejected three as being unsuitable and adopted the survey for the line to be l built close to the shore of Lake Baikal and across rock ground to the village of Kultuk To build this line it will be necessary to do great deal of blasting and to bore several tunnels. The cost will be heavy, being estimated at s143,- 900 mile; and the line will have to be strongly built, for derailment would
 mean precipitation into the lake ? It is no wonder that the Russian Gov | CllililCII ct HE DcalhCo ct t4iC t0S0 Ol building this circum- -Baikal line, and decided instead to carry the trains | across the lake on huge ferries, after the American system. This plan has l proved to be a failure. Even when the lake is not frozen, the crossing is diff | ficult and dangerous because of fre- quent storms. The most powerful ice
 breaker that could be invented was built in England in sections and put to- l gether on the shores of the lake by Russian workmen, but the immense | thickness of the ice in winter defies it's efforts, and all the troops and supplies are now being carried across the lake | in small sledges drawn by dogs a slow and unsatisfactory method, which does not permit the railway to work
 even up to it's limited capacity. It is I estimated that under the most favor able conditions only 1000 men, with their rations, can be transported across { the lake in day, and this estimate J takes no account of the transportation ! of supplies and munitions of war. As | travel across the lake is often inter-
 ruped for days at time, it will read | fly be seen that 10000 men is a liberal
 estimate of the number who can be
 moved across the lake in 8 month.
 i The time taken to perform the 40- mile Journey over the ice varies with l the state of the weather and the condi- tions of the ice, but is is usually from five to eight hours. Most of the sledges are now carrying double weight-six soldiers instead of three-so that the }longer time is taken. Rough rest houses of logs and pine boards have
 been erected at frequent intervals along the route, at which the soldiers stop to drink hot coffee and vodka and warm their half-frozen limbs before huge
 fires of pine logs which burn in iron { braziers in front of the rest houses. l Many contradictory statements have
 been made recently as to the value of Lake Bai1al as means of transporta- l tion, some travellers asserting that the
 lake is so thoroughly frozen that it can l always be crossed in winter without
 danger, and others contending that it is nothing better than a death trap. | Probably the most trustworthy state ment on the subject is that made by the Russian Ministry of Ways of Commu- nication, in one of it's official publica- tions, which is to the following effect:
 The lake begins to freeze in Noven- Iber, but is never frostbound before the middle of December or the beginning of January. This fact cannot be ex- plained by the absence of cold, but only by the unsteadiness ana agitation of