PICTORIAL SUPPLEMENT
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. SATURDAY, JULY
1934.
STUDENDOUS SIBERIAN PROJECTS
VAST POWER PLANTS
By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS BAIKAL Siberia. If Soviet engineers are right, and nothing upsets their plans, titanic forces now in play in and about this region will change the whole face of the Far East.
In front of the railway station here rise mountains rivalling the Alps. Behind spreada
Lake Baikal and the source of the | dustrialization project cau Angara river, said to be the most easily understood. limpid in the world,
Fully harnessed, Russians claim, this stream will cultivate a series of power stations eurpassing Ni- agara Falls, Muscle Shoals, Wilson and Boulder Dams combined.
Lake Baikal in 380 miles long. It is from 20 to 45 miles wide. In places it la a mile deep. It is now frozen over. I saw a regiment of troops manoeuvring on its solid охранве.
Trains have crossed on tracks Jaid along its stond-like surface. And this, it seems to layman, might interfere with power de- velopment, at least in winter.
MIGHTY POWER.
However, the Angara la Balkaľa only, outlet. And, being high- in the mountains, Baikal's waters, racing hundreds of miles down this stream to where it drops into the mighty Yonisol, will yield more "white coal," It is said, than any other known river.
of
Russian engineers, Home whom were associated with. Col. High L. Cooper, American con- sultant for the world-famous Daloprostrol, south Russia, claim the Angara will develop 44 times the power of that project. And, Dnieprostrol is second only to Niagara Falls.
Full expanalon of the Dniepro- atrol plant will give 756,000 horse- power, or 535,000 kilowatts with an annual output of energy totalling 2,800,000,000 kilowatt hours.
bo
Here, In an area bigger than the United States east of the Missie- sippi, Sovlot geologists assert, are stupendous reservos of iron, coal, copper, aliver, lead, and raw mate- rials of all kinds-all that it takes
Full utilization of the natural reservoir of Lake Baikal, It is claimed, would yield more than 30,000,000 horsepower, or better than 22,000,000 kilowatts, with an annual output of energy sur-to convert Russia's former penal jare under construction. The passing 120 billion kilowatt hours, colony into one of the world's most Trans-Siberian, sole transcontin-
pulanting empires.
antal railway, is far from suffle- fent.
~ MATERIAL FOR EMPIRE,
To the man in the street these figures menn little. But what all this electric energy and horse- power would mean to Siberia's in-
In the heart of it lies Baikal, about half way between cast and west, waiting to give this region almost unlimited electric power,
New railway lines are not only being surveyed, but some of them!
A now one, to be called the Great Northern, will run from Archangel, on the White Sea, to somewhere near Rukhlovo, on the Trans-Siberian, where that line
The dam shown aboro,, with Russian workmen , marching · across, in celebration, part of Daleprostral, world's greatest south hydro-electric plant, in
› Russia, will be dwarfed by an-
other project in Siberia, IF Rus...... sia completes a programme now, being drafted." Thli · mammoth undertaking › would, be carried out on the Angura river, a' view of which is shown at the left, flowing out of lake Baikal, near the important city of Ir.. kutak. The Angar, any trav ollers, is the most limpid river
some hundreds of miles, they likely will use the same fracki. ...
The Great Northern, it is said, will shorten the time between Moss. cow and Vladivostok about two days. Most of these lines will bo electrified, according to Soviet plans.
In addition, Soviet engineers havo conceived a hard-surface highway through this region, from the easternmost tip of Chukotski peninsula, right under the Arctic Circle, to European Russia.
An American motorist could get in his car and stop on it all the way from Maine to Moscow-or, for that matter, to Barlin, Paris, and Madrid with only one voyage of 16 miles across Behring. Strait.
This, it is needless to say, will hardly be ready for the render's 1934 vacation.
CHALLENGE TO JAPAN.
Unless the Soviet Union's vast. colonization and Siberian indus- trialization scheme falls through, a total area larger than the entire United States will be converted into a whole series of Garys, Pitts- burghe, Niagara Falls, Muscle Shoals, and Boulder Dams.
This means that for the first time in history a colossal European power would entrench itself along the whole northern frontier of China and Manchuria and rub ol- bows with the Japanese.
The significance. of this cannot be exaggerated. Up to now neither China nor Japan has had a, western power for a neighbour. Siberia, nominally Russian, has gone almost undeveloped and uninhabited by white men, save for the felons in exilé.
Even the number of these has been grossly magnified in the public mind. From 1825 to 1905: less than a million were sentenced to prison camps there.
CHANGE FACE OF ASIA.
PAGE THREE
GAS MASKS SOLD RETAIL
-"Now, just put this one on. Moniteur
There! Parfect!
Monsieur is just the type for this gas-mask ou; It's what every 'well dressed man will be wearing in the next whe." BY MORRIS GILBERT. What price protection from gas warfare?
The answer In Brussels is $1.16 in Belglan france, over the counter, retail,
Every man his own life-saver is the idea of the little shop in one of this capital's principal streets where dlaplay of gas-masks for private use almost crowds out the shop's principal purpose-solling
Araworks.
maska. "No surveillance, no con- trol, can stop this state of affairs.
Thore is much resistance to overcome to teach the public the- dangers of gas warfare. Certain Utopians object that war is Im« possible. That is their right--a8 it is their right to let themselves themselves. For them, I can't do. be assassinated without dafending ·
anything.
"Others, taking their wishes for facts, pretend that gas attacks won't take place in the next war The masks on sale are not high-since all peoples called civilized ly specialized. They are "fight have condemned gas' warfare 08 maska" rather than resistance too barbarous, masks, the salesgirl points out. Supposed to protect the buyer HISTORY SUPPORTS HIM. from four different varieties of known military gases, they make The colonel goes' ‚on' to
argue no pretence of halting the fumes that history shows that all war is 3Vhat offect the transformation
of newer, deadlier gases which an eternal development of possible of Siberia will have on the Chin- new war is likely to producp. Also arms. When the English defeated cse, and what Japan will do to they don't pretend to keep a pur-the French at Crecy in the year meet the challenge, is already be- chaser in comfort during use. If 1340, he reminds his renders, the ing asked in world chancelleries.
you can make a quick get-away French nobility was tremendous But Toklo has given more than a from the scene of
gan-attack.ly shocked and disgusted because” hint as to her policy. It is, blunt-wearing one of these crudo and in the English used canton, which ly, "hands off China."
expensive contrivances, you will was against the rules civilized In the event "n third power have got your money's worth. So warfare, it was argued, besides be- threatens our position there," a declares the man who makes them, ing unsportsmanlike. But, a lit-" foreign office spokesman said in The inventar is a Belgian mill- | tie-later, the French used cannon, WILL ELECTRIFY RAILWAYS. Tokdo, "we shall intervene."
tary
man, Colonel Stevelinck. toa. Another line under construction And to Japan any power which { "Everybody knows that any So ho argues that gas 'warfare; will run from around Tomsk to the lends itself to the conversion of chemical plant whatsoever can be with novel inventions and terrors, Pacific port of Okhotsk. Both thig China into a unified, strong na-turned in a few hours into fac- | will certainly be part of the next and the Great Northern will pasation thereby becomes a threat to tory for poison gas," he writes in combat, and hence I would be just north of Lake Baikal, where, for be dealt with nocordingly.
a pamphlet distributed with his as well to be prepared.
in the world...
rouches the peak of the salient north of Manchurls.
W
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