The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-14

ready far south of Archangel, where our marines joined them. The Ger mans have again called upon Finland to move against them. Presumably, in any case the Germans themselves will try to attack. And, from the map, the new Murmansk railroad, parelleling the Finnish border as 1t does for almost its entire length, seems | to offer the most vulnerable of open 1 Hanks.
 But the Germans themselves know 1 better than that. The Murmansk railroad is about as far as possible from being an open flank. And just
 now there is at least one man in America who is in a position to tell why That is Vladimir Goriachovsky the big Russian engineer who built It. 1 It was built in less than IS months l when, after nearly two years Of war, | Russia found the absolute need Of | having an ice-free port on the Arctic. l Goriachkovsky was chosen for the | iob because he was an engineer who had already solved many problems | his last work had been a railroad
 along the foot of the Altai mountains
 and it was known that the Mur- l mansk would be a road of many prob
 lems And when it was planned and located never for a moment was 1t | forgotten that it was railroad which | sooner or later might be would-be
 object of attack.
 Deliveries on Schedule Time.
 But first, to look at it only as
 railroad It runs from Svanka, the
 main line Junction east of Petrograd
 600 miles north to Kola. Its last 200
 miles is within the Arctic Circle, and
 Kola is the worlds. only Arctic rail-
 road terminus. To build the Mur-
 mansk in a year and a half-it was . finished in November, 1917-1OO,O 900 men and 15,0OO horses were put to
 work. And in one sense it is an American railroad. For it was built with American materials.
 Three years before the marines reached, the White Sea, our ships and our freight were going there
 with rails and construction machin- cry. When no pick would open the frozen ground great fires were built . to thaw it for brigades of American : steam shovels When it was found
 impossible to get supplies through from the south for the construction camps. America was drawn upon for the needed flour and bacon. And,
 from first to last, it was found possi- . ble to let everything rest and depend upon American business system. In this way:
 7 When a railroad is to be built in [ record time, work must begin smul- = taneously along almost the whole l line. And the tools and rails, the = bridge work and supplies must be de-
 livered as near as is In anywise pos } sbe to the particular section for 3 which they are designed. Well, when = the right-of-way was located, it was 9 found that at various points on the
 road there were adjacent points on e the coast of Kola Bay and the White = Sea where it might be possible for $ ships to make a landing. If they e could do it, and make their deliveries
 exactly as per a previously arranged
 schedule, whole months could be
 saved. And our ships did 1t. Despite 1 German submarines waiting for them outside. and icebergs impeding traffic " ! within. they made their deliveries as per schedule. Not a day was lost :, nor a meal. The bacon and the steel ~ arrived together. If the Murmansk " now promises to be one of the most i useful roads on earth. America car
 claim at least part of the credit for ', its being there.
 IF Reindeer Trails and Marshes. l. But why can it not be f1anked and t cut from Finland? The answer lies tt in the nature of the country. It is e absolutely wild and virtually impassa. IF ble It is much like northwestern
 Canada. There is the same amount
 of game. When our boys are no
 fighting, they can fish and shoot ;, There is the same lack of all roads
 The sparse reindeer trails-reindeel
 sledded in the first French ammuni ~ tion-are the best the Grman wil
 find in that respect. From Lakt o Omega north there are the same lake and marshes. For hundreds of mile oo indeed, the marsh belt between the 0' railroad and Finland is virtually un
 broken And a marsh" said Hanui
 bal, 1000 years ago, 'is of all thing
 accursed in warT Where, In thos' Russian marshes. there are a few
 
 le wolves seem able to thread them u And the wolves abound. To protec
 their horses and cattle in summer the natives herd them on island
 found. And when. during the build
 ing of the road, certain German pris
 oners used in the construction gangH
 availed themselves of their working
 liberty toe run for it, in general tw,
 days or at most three proved enougl - to bring them back again.
 - Where the Ice Is Bad.
 All this, however, is true only O
 the summer. In fact, south of Lax,
 Omega it isn't true at all. What O m the winter, when solid ice should fur tc nish road beds. In both cases tn ty railroad is vulnerable. But, as vii Tt soon be seen, it Is a vulnerability tha P need give us little cause to worry. .n The Murmansk is sub-Arctic only il n- a geogra phical sense. The last reache a- of the Gulf Stream modify the eli e. mate, and there is more snow thal |. ice On the large lakes the gradu ,h ally accumulating weight of sno1 -h often forces the ice beneath tn
 water, which cannot make for tn 10 best of military thoroughfareB Eve1 ,b in the marshes half the invadin h. army would be kept busy digging ou an the other half. And finally, even if .- German army did get through.
 could stay only for the winter. Fror m February to November it's connectio, o, with its base would be severed abso e. lutely. During the months of ice Ia. sledding 1t might of course pile u Il. supplies and munitions enough |