According to "Engineering," the recently-completed railway round Lake Baikal, on the great Trans-Siberian route, is calculate ed to accommodate seven trains per day ench direction; but who all the cross-14 stations, which are to be constructed every 11 versts, are used, fourteen trains can be dispatchd every day in each direction. The water-supply arrangements at the stations are aleo able to provide for the letter cumber of trains. ho maxi mum gradient is 8 per 1,000 on open line, and in tunnels about '44 per thousand, The minimum curve radius is 150 signees 1,050 ft.) and the gauge is the ordiuxry asian gauge, All the bridges are built of stone, with upper structures of it and the viaducts partly of stone alone, ai partly of stone and iron. li the tune are wide enough t allow of a double line of rails, although, so far, only a single line has been Inid, The stations are mostly of brick. The railway has been built ontirely by contractors, and the value of the work for each section has not been less than 1,000,000 roubles, a different system having been adopted from the one used in the building of the Trans-Baikal Railway, for on that line there was virtually no limit to the smallness of the separate contracts, in addition to which the Government themselves built certain portions of ofthe line. The control of the work on the railway round Lake Baikal has also been somewhat closer, and the new line is expected to prove very satisfactory in this respect. The work has been pushed ahead with the greatest energy, and the line has been completed at a considershly early period than was at firat thought possible. The various contractors are expected to have fared very differently so far as the pecuniary result is concerned, for the prices upon which the tenders were based were fairly uniform, whereas the equality and conditions of the work varied far more than was originally anticipated—a. fact which means unexpected additional profit to some, and the reverse to others. The varying hard-as of the rock is best il-Jusirate! by the fact that ar some unnels the quantity of dynamite required per cubic sagene blasted varied from 5 Ib. 60 1b. In consequence of incomplete survey, the calculated expenditure has been exceeded by considerably more than 5,010,000 roubles, much of which comes upon the tunnels, on account of the additional brickwork. The Baikal Lake is the largest alpine lake in the world, its area being about 84,000 square kilometres. Its height above sea-level varies " little, according to the different measurement:, but is about 2,000 ft.; at places it is very deep, some 3,000 it.; it has but few islands, and is surrounded by mountains as_much as 6,000 fi. to 7,000 ft. high. The Baikal ice-bound from the end of Decent ber till the middle of May, and its waters never rise above a temperature of 10 deg. Cent, The water of Lake Baikal has but one outlet, the River Angara, which falls into the Yenisei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.