.

The Trans-Siberian nominally begins in Europe. It is inaugurated
by the magnificent iron bridge which spans the Volga at Samara
in East Russia. The Volga is here a giant river, and this noble
bridge joins the European railway system with the new Asiatic line.
But practically the Asian line commences in the heart of the Ural
Mountains, if that long and broad chain of low and pretty hills
ought to be dignified with the name of mountains. Here lies the
little town of Cheliabinsk, which in 1894 was the terminus of the
European system.

It is an interesting fact that Americans and Englishmen were the
real authors of this splendid and romantic scheme for spanning the
Asiatic continent with a railway from west to east. In 1857, an
American named Collins came forward with a scheme for the formation
of an Amur Railway Company, to lay a line from Irkutsk to Chita.
Although his plan was not officially adopted, it was carefully
kept in mind, and it actually forms the main and central part of
the present line. An English engineer offered to lay a tramroad
across Siberia, after Muravieff had carried Russia to the Pacific
by his brilliant annexation of the mouths of the Amur. In 1858,
three Englishmen offered to construct a railway from Moscow through
Nijni-Novgorod to Tartar Bay. Though all proposals by foreigners
have been courteously shelved, they have in reality formed the
bases of native enterprise. It is to the credit of Russia that
she has determined to depend on the energy and ability of her own
sons to carry out this colossal undertaking.

One of the chronic troubles of the Russian Government arises from
the uneven distribution of the population. It happens that those
are the most thickly inhabited districts which are the least able
to support a dense population. For instance, an immense number of
villages are scattered through the vast forest regions of Central
and Western Russia, where birch trees grow by millions, while the
great wheat-growing plains of the west centre and south-west are
but sparsely inhabited. Then again, the infatuation of the military
oligarchy has been evidenced in the plan by which all the railways
except this new Siberian line have been designed for purely military
purposes. The Emperor Nicholas insisted on all the lines being
developed without the slightest regard to the wants of the towns
and the conveniences of commerce. Even the natural facilities for
engineering operations were not allow