ISOLATION OF RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1916, Page 8

ISOLATION OF RUSSIA.

HOW IT IS BEING GOT OVER. .When the isolation of Russia looms Up, and with it the difficulty of transporting heavy supplies from her Allies to supply her capacious demands, the eye naturally turns towards tho north to Archangel, guarding the northern Dvina, where it bows into the White Sea. This is one of her two open doors, but, unfortunately, like its com pardon, it is not wide enough. The lon«' trans-Siberian railway is a slender link between the east and the west, and transport across it must be slow, while Archangel is served by a na.rrow-gauge line which is insufficient to Russia's needs of the moment, and, in addition, the port is frozen for more than half the year. Archangel really lias been unequal to the needs of Russia in tre piping times of peace, and since sixteen years back she has had under attention the opening of a new port at the head of a railway from Petrograd, but slightly longer than the route from Archangel to the capital. The port is situated on Katherina Bay, and is now a small settlement known as Alcxandrovsk. This port, within tho Polar Circle, but never frozen over, i»< to be the new outlet for Russia, and though the task of connecting it with .Petrograd is titanic in proportions, the complete line is to he open before the next Russian winter. Katherina Harbor in washed by the Arctic Ocean, but it is within the range of the beneficial influence of the Gulf Stream, which makes it a free port. Its railway will run almost due south, with occasional deviations, passing through lake country for practically the wohle of its journey, and for a considerable distance the construction work must he carried out in marshy areas. By the end of last year, it was expected that the first section would be completed, 'the Olonetz railway connecting Petrograd with Petrozavodsk, on the western shores of Lake Onega. From Petrozavodsk the rail* are being laid direct northward, at grst to the northern terminus of Lake Onega, then between two big lakes. It reaches the shores of the White Sea at Soroka Rav. and swerving n little to the north-west, reaches the most important administrative and industrial centre of all this district, the town of Kein. in the midst of Onega Hay, or, as it is there called, "Lip" (fluba). Here ends the first section of the new railway.

The second is being laid between an entire archipelago cf small lakes, amid swamps, marshes and virgin fir forests, to Kandalaksha, a big settlement of fishermen situated between the sea and the extensive Lake Imandrn, along both banks of the swiftly-flowing Niva. From Kandalasksha the new route has to intersect the. spacions Kola Peninsula, the northern shore of which, called the Mur man coast, is washed by the cold waters of te Arctic Ocean. Tins :* the Wirt section, and because the new railway must touch the Murman coast at the smal Uown of Kola it is called the Murman railway. LiTe ice-free character of Katherina Pay, in the depths of which it is situated, and the ample depth at this spot of bot te bay itself and te mouth of the Kola river, afford a splendid opportunity for the making of a port capable fo big traffic. The country through wltieh this new railway is to run ie a terrible manifestation of savage nature, and .although it is said to hide within itself riches in the guise of petroleum, coal, copper, tin, iron and other metals, it presents strong ob stacles to the men who are endeavoring to shackle it with the steel bonds o* industry. These points are made clear by a Russian journalist, in a description of the country after a recent journey through it: "This is a very distinctive region in its geological formation and wild beauty. It is entirely desert, with the exception of the coastal strip and two or three postal tracks. Enormous fir forests are silently reflected in the cold placid depths of large blue lakes, and it seems as though you were looking at a picture of the earth as it was before the advent of man. Boundless space and boundless quiet. In other places, instead of forest, stretch emeraldcolored valleys, winch entrance with their dense covering and expanse. But they are deceptive, and so far no human being has ventured to enter them, for they are bottomless, absorbent swamps. Between the swamps and forests stretch sandy ridges and here and there granite cliffs and rocks of colossal dimensions, among which, theri mighty roots deeply embedded,in them, grow gigantie pines, the contemporaries of the first geological changes." Dealing more particularly with the railway construction, in which a huge army of laborers, including countless prisoners of war, dre working under the supreme direction of M. Goriai/hlovsky, this writer reveals to an even greater extent the gigantie task which Russia is speeding to a conclusion:—"When they began to lay the rails in several sections the men abandoned work because they were literally eaten alive by mosquitoes, and especially midges (moshka). These midges infested the region in clouds, and interefered with work day and night. In another part of the selected route a firm road-bed could not be found earlier than the end of June: everything was flooded with water. In several sections of 200 vcrtss (133 milej) more than half the road had to be built on piles; cofferdams had to be lowered and filled with ear. Water would ooze away somewhere, permeate the perpetually-vibrat-ing and porous ground, and several days afterwards would come to the surface in an entirely different place, and everything would have to be done over again. But no less difficulty was offered by theg ranitc cliffs and rocks encountered on tdie way, among which grew gigantic trees. Tims surmounting difficulties of this kind, engineers and laborers, up to their knees in water, or floundering in sand, in the liquid mud of the swamps, stumbling over rocks, stones and the huge roots am] trunk* of dead giant trees, are slowly opening Russia's new" way to the open oceans of the world."