A GREAT CANAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11557, 19 April 1898, Page 5

A GREAT CANAL.

CONNECTION OP THE BLACK AND BALTIC SEAS. United Press Association—By Electric TelegraphCopyright. LONDON. April 17. Prom Vienna it is reported that the construction of a waterway from the Baltic to Black Sea has been decided upon. The canal will start from the Gulf of Eiga, and join the Black Sea near Kherson. The cost will be 220,000,000 roubles. The great scheme of a ship canal to connect the Black and Baltic Seas took definite shape about six or seven years ago, when the late Czar, Alexander 111., instructed M. Flourens, formerly French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to investigate the matter and to make a survey. The question was brought before the present Czar, and M. Flourens was directed to confer with the Ministers of Finance and Communications. The route proposed is from the Gulf of Riga along the rivers-Duna, Beresina and Dnieper to Kherson on the Black Sea, the length being 994 miles. The channels of the rivers would be deepened and new cuttings made where necessary, so as to give a.depth of 28ft of water. The estimated cost is twenty millions sterling, and the time necessary for construction five years. While the primary object of the canal is to connect the naval dockyards at Libau in the north with those at Nicholaieff in the south, it is thought that .the great waterway would be commercially Successful, as it would develop a very rich tract of countiy. There is already communication between the two seas, practicable for rafts and small vessels, by this route. The Duna, which empties into the Gulf of Riga, is generally closed by ice from November to April, and the Dnieper which discharges into the Black Sea, is closed from January to March. The upper portion of the latter river passes through marshy forests, and it is here that some of the greatest difficulties in the way of the scheme-are expected to arise, while 200 miles from the debouchure are a series of nine rapids, extending over forty miles, and with a total fall of over a hundred feet.