The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-08-31
THE ISLAND Of SAKAAUN
Territory Valuable for Its Oil,
Coal and Fisheries
A RUSSIAN PRISON HOLD
3.lmon Yields $4,000, 900 Annually
80 Coast $50 Miles Long and
Mountains 5000 Feet High
Country Cold and Untillablc--
Many Fur Bearing Animals.

1Any Fur Bearing Animals.
A big as Belgium and Holland put
agsther, very nearly as big as Ire
md. and fully twice as big as
1rsece, Sakhalin is a long, narrow
Beand, nowhere wider than the State
u Massachusetts, is long, and at GER
AIN points not wider than Nan
uchst, says the Boston Evening
Transcript. But this ribbonlike e island
ysng northwest Of Japan. stretches
lonG the coast OF Siberia (from
shtch a narrow sea separates IT. for
= distance Of 670 miles. Sakhalin has
- river ESQ miles long and noun
aans 5000 feet high. It's by no
psans a vest pocket country.
Only here and there is the soil at
III fertile, and even then you must
;ontent yourself with raising market
1uck and expect to get malaria while
wedding your garden. Such at least
- been the experience Of Russian
ysaal colonists who have tried to
Tyrsst a living from the soil More
wes, the country looks every whit as
nhospitable as experiment has proved
& b be. II It had no other claim to
Importance its dense forests would
- enough to make It worth owning.
raetically untouched, they stretch
rom one end OF Sakhalin to the
,khar.
Besides. there is coal-not easily
mined, but abundant. At Duey the
o1ghest criminals have worked
hAlned to their barrows, and each
ear they spent in the mines has
ounted as year and n half toward
,sstening their discharge Sakhalin
,as long supplied ships with fuel.
According to c. S. Patonoff the oil
'egions of Sakhalin are richer than
hose of America. Subterranean
akes-some of them with an area OF
1000 square feet-lie so close to the
,urface that natural gushers can be
asily established. The oil regions
end themselves readily to exploita-
Ion, for the east coast is only from
wenty to twenty-five miles away,
md there nature has provided har-
,ors that boats drawing twenty feet
Aflwater can safely enter. For four
months of the year, to be sure, those
Iarbors are icelocked, but the ice can
70 broken by specially constructed
. teamers known as "ledokol."
Meanwhile another sort of game
bounds-in the north a fine menag-
rie at large, composed of bear,
oxes, sable, antelope and reindeer;
the south an occasional tiger; on
he coast a remunerative profusion
Il seal, sea lions and dolphins, not to
leption a species of plebeian whale
little priced by blubber hunters.
But the chief source of wealth In
ne Sakhalin Of to-day is the fish
ries. The rivers TEEN with salmon,
.ne waters along the coast with her
Ing. In a single year Sakhalin
"ielded 81 100000 worth of fish, and
his In spite of the most discOur-
ging conditions. The Russians
'ouldn't give the Japs a free hand,
or would they themselves develop
1e full possibilities Of the fisheries.
s long as the island remained sort
[ Siberian backyard, into which
S1les were constantly to be thrown,
was bad policy to encourage fleets
I fishing boats to come prowling
long the shore. The boats might
hin out the population. Every year
'akhalin sends a million dollars
worth Of fish fertilizer to the Japan
Sc rice fields. This fertilizer, nee
lerring, is so indispensable to rice
rowing that when the war cut off
ne Japanese fishermen from the
'akhalin coasts two japanese towns,
Iowkaido and Otaru, petitioned the
Iikado to send troops to seize the
.sland.
The director general of prisons
asked permission to organize an
army of Japanese jailbirds for SER
.hese met with governmental dis
,ouragement, but the seizure of SAX
aalin by trained troops was UNDER
AIKEN as soon as practicable. Nor did
Japan fail to perceive that a SAX
lalin In the grip of foreign Power
would constitute a standing menace
70 Japanese agriculture It was the
case of Corea over again, only with
herring substituted for grain as the
vital point.