THE GEEAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 239 



mittee, but in both institutions, albeit on different grounds, il was found to be inopportune and 

 was rejected. 



The third proposal following close upon the second in 1658 aimed at uniting by rail 

 Moscow and the Tartar Straits on the Pacific shore of Siberia. The authors of this scheme 

 were the Englishmen, MoiTison, Horn and Sleigh, who \vithout demanding any guarantee of 

 Income from the Government yet petitioned for such considerable privileges, that their grant- 

 ing would have lead to the concentration of the whole Siberian trade and industry in the 

 hands of foreigners for a very long period. At the same time they gave the Government no 

 guarantee for the timely and successful accomplishment of the work contemplated. On more 

 intimate acquaintance with the said proposal it appeared that it was founded upon no pre- 

 liminary surveys. On this ground the Government did not find it deserving of attention and 

 informed the proposers of the scheme that the construction of a railway from Kizhni-Novgorod 

 to the Tartar Bay did not enter Into the plans of the Government and therefore could not 

 be accepted. 



The question of the Siberian railway aroused a lively interest in official and private 

 circles, and therefore there was no lack of new, more or less imposing propositions. In the 

 same year, 1858, appeared Sofronov's scheme, to carry a railway from Saratov through the 

 Kirghiz steppes to Semipalatinsk, Minusinsk, Selenginsk, the Amour and Pekin. Against it 

 there then appeared in print many objections in which was pointed out among other things 

 the necessity of taking the line along the Great Siberian Tract, which had existed from time 

 immemorial, crossing the Ural and connecting Nizhni-Novgorod with Kiakhta. Sofronov's 

 scheme, like all the preceding ones, was a paper scheme and not the result of actual investigation 

 of the trading and industrial needs of the localities, through which this mighty route was to 

 pass. Submitted to Count Mouraviev-Amoursky's consideration, it called forth several corrections 

 and additions, but had no practical consequences. 



Of a much more practical character was the undertaking proposed by Kokorev and 

 Co., who in 1862, having formed the idea of uniting the basins of the Volga and the Obi. 

 these two giant streams of European Russia and Siberia, availed themselves of the scheme 

 of the mining engineer Rashet, for a long time head of the Government and private mining 

 works in the Ural, and perfectly acquainted with that district. The surveys carried out with 

 reference to this scheme pointed to the following line, from Perm via the Nizhni-Tagil works 

 to Tinmen, 678 versts with a branch to Irbit, 13 versts. This scheme, completely satisfying 

 the demands of the through route, appeared to be the most desirable for the whole Ural 

 mining industry, whose representatives received it very favourably. However, soon afterwards the 

 same men abandoned the direction indicated by Rashet's schemes and adopted another pro- 

 posed by Colonel Bogdanovich. 



The latter's plan was one of the results of his despatch in 1866 to the government 

 of Vlatka to take measures against the injurious consequences of the crop failure which 

 befell that country in 1864 After only two months from his departure from St. Petersburg, 

 Bogdanovich reported by telegraph to the Minister of the Interior on the 23rd of March, 1866, 

 as follows: « After removing all difficulties in the provisioning of the governments of Perm and 

 Viatka and investigating the local conditions, I am of opinion that the only sure means of 



