ST. PETERSBURG A SEAPORT.
The Emperor and Empress of Russia, on Wednesday, May 27. 1885, the second anniversary of their coronation at Moscow, opened the Maritime Canal, in the Bay of Cronstadt, the shallow upper extremity of the Gulf of Finland, by which great work the city of St. Petersburg is made a seaport as much as London. St. Petersburg, indeed, stands almost on the sea shore, at the very mouth of the Neva, though behind several low islands which crowd the head of the Gulf; and though this is an inland sea without saltness or tides, it is closed by ice in winter. Seventeen miles to the west is the island of Cronstadt, a great fortress, with naval dockyards and arsenals for the imperial fleet, and with a spacious harbor for ships of commerce. The navigable entrance channel up the Bay of Cronstadt to the mouth of the Neva lies under the south side of Cronstadt, and is commanded by its batteries. As the bay eastward has a depth not exceeding 12 ft., and the depth of the Neva at its bar is but 9 ft., all large vessels have been obliged hitherto to discharge their cargoes at Cronstadt, to be there transferred to lighters and barges which brought the goods up to the capital. "The delay and expense of this process," says Mr. William Simpson, our special artist, "will be understood by stating that a cargo might be brought from England by a steamer in a week, but it would take three weeks at least to transport the same cargo from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. Of course, much of this time was lost by custom house formalities. Sometimes it has taken even longer than is here stated, which made the delivery of goods at St. Petersburg a matter of great uncertainty, thus rendering time contracts almost an impossibility. This state of things had continued from the time of Peter the Great, and his great scheme had never been fully realized. The increase of commerce and shipping had long made this a crying evil; but even with all these difficulties, the trade here has been rapidly growing. A scheme to bring the shipping direct to the capital had thus become almost a necessity. As Manchester wishes to bring the ocean traffic to her doors without the intervention of Liverpool, so St. Petersburg desired to have its steamers sailing up to the city, delivering and loading their cargoes direct at the stores and warehouses in her streets. If Glasgow had not improved the Clyde, and had up to the present day to bring up all goods carried by her ocean going steamers from Port Glasgow--a place constructed for that purpose last century, and which is twenty miles from Glasgow--she would have been handicapped exactly as St. Petersburg has been till now in the commercial race.
"For some years the subject was discussed at St. Petersburg, and more than one scheme was proposed; at last the project of General N. Pooteeloff was adopted. According to this plan, a canal has been cut through the shallow bottom of the Gulf of Finland, all the way from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. The line of this canal is from northwest to southeast; it may be said to run very nearly parallel to the coast line on the south side of the Gulf, and about three miles distant from it. This line brings the canal to the southwest end of St. Petersburg, where there are a number of islands, which have formed themselves, in the course of ages, where the Bolshaya, or Great Neva, flows into the Gulf. It is on these islands that the new port is to be formed. It is a very large harbor, and capable of almost any amount of extension. It will be in connection with the whole railway system of Russia. One part of the scheme is that of a new canal, on the south side of the city, to connect the maritime canal, as well as the new harbor, with the Neva, so that the large barges may pass, by a short route, to the river on the east, and thus avoid the bridges and traffic of the city.
"The whole length of the canal is about eighteen miles. The longer portion of it is an open channel, which is made 350 feet wide at bottom. Its course will be marked by large iron floating buoys; these it is proposed to light with gas by a new self-acting process which has been very successful in other parts of the world; by this means the canal will be navigable by night as well as by day. The original plan was to have made the canal 20 feet deep, but this has been increased to 22 feet. The Gulf of Finland gradually deepens toward Cronstadt, so that the dredging was less at the western end. This part was all done by dredgers, and the earth brought up was removed to a safe distance by means of steam hopper barges. The contract for this part of the work was sublet to an American firm--Morris and Cummings, of New York. The eastern portion of the work on the canal is by far the most important, and about six miles of it is protected by large and strong embankments on each side. These embankments were formed by the output of the dredgers, and are all faced with granite bowlders brought from Finland; at their outer termination the work is of a more durable kind, the facing is made of squared blocks of granite, so that it may stand the heavy surf which at times is raised by a west wind in the Gulf. These embankments, as already stated, extend over a space of nearly six miles, and represent a mass of work to which there is no counterpart in the Suez Canal; nor does the plan of the new Manchester Canal present anything equivalent to it. The width of this canal also far exceeds any of those notable undertakings. The open channel is, as stated above, 350 ft. wide; within the embankments the full depth of 22 ft. extends to 280 ft., and the surface between the embankments is 700 ft. This is nearly twice the size of the Suez Canal at the surface, which is 100 meters, or about 320 ft., while it is only about 75 ft. at the bottom; the Amsterdam Canal is 78 ft. wide. The new Manchester Canal is to be 100 ft. of full depth, and it boasts of this superiority over the great work of Lesseps. The figures given above will show how far short it comes of the dimensions of the St. Petersburg Canal. The Manchester Canal is to be 24 ft. in depth; in that it has the advantage of 2 ft. more than the St. Petersburg Canal; but with the ample width this one possesses, this, or even a greater depth, can be given if it should be found necessary. Most probably this will have ultimately to be done, for ocean going steamers are rapidly increasing in size since the St. Petersburg Canal was planned, and in a very few years the larger class of steamers might have to deliver their cargoes at Cronstadt, as before, if the waterway to St. Petersburg be not adapted to their growing dimensions.
THE ST. PETERSBURG AND CRONSTADT MARITIME CANAL, OPENED BY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1885.
"The dredging between the embankments of the canal was done by an improved process, which may interest those connected with such works. It may be remembered that the Suez Canal was mostly made by dredging, and that the dredgers had attached to them what the French called 'long couloirs' or spouts, into which water was pumped, and by this means the stuff brought up by the dredgers was carried to the sides of the canal, and there deposited. The great width of the St. Petersburg Canal was too much for the long couloirs, hence some other plan had to be found. The plan adopted was that invented by Mr. James Burt, and which had been used with the greatest success on the New Amsterdam Canal. Instead of the couloir, floating pipes, made of wood, are in this system employed; the earth or mud brought up has a copious stream of water poured on it, which mixes in the process of descending, and the whole becomes a thick liquid. This, by means of a centrifugal pump, is propelled through the floating pipes to any point required, where it can be deposited. The couloir can only run the output a comparatively short distance, while this system can send it a quarter of a mile, or even further, if necessary. Its power is not limited to the level surface of the water. I saw on my visit to the canal one of the dredgers at work, and the floating pipes lay on the water like a veritable sea-serpent, extending to a long distance where the stuff had to be carried. At that point the pipe emerged from the water, and what looked very much like a vertebra or two of the serpent crossed the embankment, went down the other side, and there the muddy deposit was pouring out in a steady flow. Mr. Burt pointed out to me one part of the works where his pump had sent the stuff nearly half a mile away, and over undulating ground. This system will not suit all soils. Hard clay, for instance, will not mix with the water; but where the matter brought up is soft and easily diluted, this plan possesses many advantages, and its success here affords ample evidence of its merits.
"About five miles below St. Petersburg, a basin had been already finished, with landing quays, sheds, and offices; and there is an embankment connecting it with the railways of St. Petersburg, all ready for ships to arrive. When the ships of all nations sail up to the capital, then the ideas of Peter the Great, when he laid the foundations of St. Petersburg, will be realized. St. Petersburg will be no longer an inland port. It will, with its ample harbor and numerous canals among its streets, become the Venice of the North. Its era of commercial greatness is now about to commence. The ceremony of letting the waters of the canal into the new docks was performed by the Emperor in October, 1883. The Empress and heir apparent, with a large number of the Court, were present on the occasion. The works on the canal, costing about a million and a half sterling, were begun in 1876, and have been carried out under the direction of a committee appointed by the Government, presided over by his Excellency, N. Sarloff. The resident engineer is M. Phofiesky; and the contractors are Messrs. Maximovitch and Boreysha."
We heartily congratulate the Russian government and the Russian nation upon the accomplishment of this great and useful work of peace. It will certainly benefit English trade. The value of British imports from the northern ports of Russia for the year 1883 was £13,799,033; British exports, £6,459,993; while from the southern ports of Russia our trade was: British imports, £7,177,149; British exports, £1,169,890--making a total British commerce with European Russia of £20,976,182 imports from Russia and £7,629,883 exports to Russia. It cannot be to the interest of nations which are such large customers of each other to go to war about a few miles of Afguhan frontier. The London Chamber of Commerce Journal, ably edited by Mr. Kenric B. Murray, Secretary to the Chamber, has in its May number an article upon this subject well deserving of perusal. It points out that in case of war most of the British export trade to Russia would go through Germany, and might possibly never again return under British control. In spite of Russian protective duties, this trade has been well maintained, even while the British import of Russian commodities, wheat, flax, hemp, tallow, and timber, was declining 40 per cent. from 1883 to 1884. The St. Petersburg Maritime Canal will evidently give much improved facilities to the direct export of English goods to Russia. Without reference to our own manufactures, it should be observed that the Russian cotton mills, including those of Poland, consume yearly 264 million pounds of cotton, most of which comes through England. The importation of English coal to Russia has afforded a noteworthy instance of the disadvantage hitherto occasioned by the want of direct navigation to St. Petersburg; the freight of a ton of coal from Newcastle to Cronstadt was six shillings and sixpence, but from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg it cost two shillings more. It is often said, in a tone of alarm and reproach, that Russia is very eager to get to the sea. The more Russia gets to the sea everywhere, the better it will be for British trade with Russia; and friendly intercourse with an empire containing nearly a hundred millions of people is not to be lightly rejected.--Illustrated London News.