land in the foothills of the Altai far to the south. As a result, therefore, this district in the neighbourhood of Biisk and Barnaul, which is one of the most fertile tracts in all Siberia, has been hindered in its development by lack of rail communication.
The section of the railway from Chelyabinsk to Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia was begun in 1892 and finished in 1897, but it was not until some five years later that it was carried to the east of Lake Baikal, while communication with the Far East was established only just before the Russo-Japanese War. That part of the line which crosses Western and Central Siberia, although it fails to tap the fertile districts of the Altai, is nevertheless of the utmost value for developing the steppes of Western Siberia. The eastern section of the line, on the other hand, cannot at present be said to have more than a military and strategical value and a certain utility for passenger and mail communication by rail to the Far East.
The line cost 200,000,000 roubles (£22,200,000), or nearly double what was estimated, and was marked by much wasteful expenditure and no little corruption among the engineers and officials engaged in its construction. Since those days, it has been found necessary to relay the whole line with heavier rails, and much of the line has recently been double-tracked.
The completion of the trans-Siberian railway scheme is nevertheless one of the marvels of the last century—more wonderful in many respects than the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway—and to the Russian Government belongs the credit of carrying out one of the most daring railway
