240 SIBERIA. 



preventing famine in the (Jral country in the I'nluie is the buililing of a railway from the 

 governments of the interior to Ki<aterinburg and thence to Tinmen. Such a line, being sub- 

 sequently continni'il through Siberia to the Chinese frontier would acquire a gieat importance 

 both strategical and for international trade*. Afterwards, on the recfipt from Bogdanovich of 

 a nioro detaili-d ivpmt on the subject, it was in April, ISB*^, thought good to authoriZ'; the 

 s;ii(l piMson to carry out detailed surveys and lorni a scheme for a railway Irom thi- village 

 of Yershov through Ekaterinbuig to Tinmen. Tim original project was somewhat ha.stily 

 draugliti'd and therofore the author subsequently had to make '^"V*t;iI corrections and ad- 

 ditions in 11. 



The two schemes referred to, powerfully affecting the interests of different parts of 

 Siberia, called into existence a third in 1869, that of the trader liiubimov. The latter carried 

 out surveys from Perm through the towns of Kungur, Ekaterinburg and Shadrinsk to the 

 hamlet of Bieloozersk, situated 49 versts to the north of Kurgan on the river Tobol, a distance 

 of 711 versts. There was at the same time in view to carry from the main line a side 

 mining branch in a northern direction from Ekaterinburg through the Nizhni-Tagil works 

 to the Kushvinsk Government works, over a length of 131 versts. 



The then Governor-General of Western Siberia, Adjutant General Khruschov also 

 directed attention to the carrying out of these surveys closely affecting the country 

 entrusted to his care, and having become acquainted on the spot with the direction of trade 

 and its needs, presented at the end of 1869 a memorial addressed to the Emperor upon the 

 necessity of the rapid solution of the question of the building of the Siberian railway? 

 pointing out at the same time the nearest route for it through Nizhni-Xovgorod to 

 Kazan and Tiunien. 



Thus at the end of the sixties, upon the question of the construction of a Siberian 

 railway there were sharply defined the three above mentioned routes according to the schemes 

 respectively of Rashet, Liubimov and Bogdanovich. All three begin at Perm, and they end, 

 the first and third, in the town of Tinmen, and the second at Bieloozersk on the river Tobol, 

 which it was proposed to make navigable. In the numerous discussions of these schmes in 

 scientific societies and in literature, the first route was named the Northern, the se- 

 cond the Middle, and the third the Southern. Although no small number of prelim- 

 inary surveys were made in all these directions, yet when in connection with the above 

 mentioned report of Adjutant General Khruschov, this question began to be discussed in the 

 higher Government spheres it was found possible in the first place to build only a part of 

 the line projected, 7C)0 versts in length, in order to join the Kama with the Tobol. 



In order to form an opinion from the mass of not fully elaborated and not always 

 exact data collected during the carrying out of private surveys, as well as to determine the 

 most advantageous route for this line, a special commission was fitted out to the T7ra!, for 

 whom the satisfaction of 'the needs of the Ural mining industry was to have the greatest 

 weight, W'hile at the same time it was pointed out to them that the road must, although to 

 a slight extent, only answer to the requirements of the Siberian transit trade. However on 

 a closer acquaintance with the matter it appeared that these objects are incompatible and 

 therefore the preference .was given to the Ural railway, the question of the Siberian road 



