The Great Russian Enterprise.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2104, 17 May 1898, Page 3

The Great Russian Enterprise.

When Russia will have completed her project for a great canal connecting the Baltic and Black Seas, she can boast of two of the most tremendous industrial and commercial creations in the ; World—this vast canal and her great Trhns-Siberi tn Railroad .now. nearly finished. A writer in an exchange fells'us that this ca ial will be capable of accommodating battleships of the heaviest tohn^ge/sailing at the rate, of six knots ian hour. Theistrategio value of such a canal is seen immediately in the fact that it will enable Russia to mobilize a great fleet in the Baltic or the Black Sea in .at least 167 hours. Should Russian interests demand the Bpeedy presence of great bodies of military reinforcements, the fleets could, be"sent through the canal, the Bosphorus, the Dard.molles s c oss the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, and across the Indian Ocean to tiie seat of the difficulty, while troops would go to the funt by way of the Trans Siberian Railroad.

The canal will connect the city ofRiga, on the Baltic, with Cherson, on the BLck Sea. It will be necessary to make 125 miles of excavations to connect the two rivers, and the canal, which will be 1,000 miles long, and have an average depth of r 28 4 feet, will cost about 97,000,000 dollars, and will be ready for business m 1902.