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Show GREAT LAKE OF SIBERIA. " Where tho Russian Troops Were Engulfed En-gulfed in Icy Waters, The drowning of several hundred Russian soldiers In Lake Baikal, In Siberia, Si-beria, ha? been chronicled In the dispatches, dis-patches, but the reoort Is declared erroneous. er-roneous. The lake Is from twenty to sixty miles wide and fiOO to COO miles long. It lies between 100 and 110 degrees east longitude and 0 and 5C degrees north latitude. Its area. equals that of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined. Its depthis a mile n places. I.ake Superior, Su-perior, the deepest of American lakes, is 1030 feet deep. There Is a convict route around tho lower pprtlon of the lake, but the grades arc so stupendous that the cost of a road over this route has been estimated at $250,000 a mile. Roads in the United States average, about $40,000 a mile under un-der difficulties. The route is 150" miles long. It is evident why the Russian depends de-pends upon his boats in summer, which make three round trips weekly, and builds his railroad upon the lec In winter, win-ter, when it freezes to a depth of twelve feet. In summer the storms strike Lake" Baikal out of a clear sky. Tho wind rushes down from tlfe north like a hurricane, hur-ricane, without warning. When it strikes the surrounding hills, which nose out Into the lake in rugged, pre- t clpltous promontories, the hurricane changes to a cyclone and the surface of the deep sea Is twisted Into the most appalling shapes, ihjssian boatmen never attempt to weather Baikal storms If there Is any hope of reaching the nearest shore. If the shore bp astern sailors turn about and flee. If it be ahead they flee. Baikal terrifies the Russian not only in summer but In winter. win-ter. In winter It Is equally dangerous. When the air holes close In the Ice. as is frequently done, there is an explosion that can be heard for miles. The surface sur-face of the Ice becomes a volcano and huge mountains of Ice shoot upward, fall and disappear In the water, to reappear reap-pear at another place, crashing through the frozen surface. The closing of an air hole In the ice of Lake Baikal might wreck the Czar's Ice railroad, sink his cars and rails and possibly his soldiers, and completely cut off communication I until another route across the lake could be laid out. to meet, perhaps, a similar fate. Tho directors of .the road havo contemplated con-templated building around the lower end of the lako, and possibly work already al-ready lias begun. But It will be two or three years before It is finished, and surely not In time to assist In the transporting trans-porting of troops to meet the advance of the Japanese on the Talu. One end of the lake traffic is Llst-venlcrmala. Llst-venlcrmala. The other Is Mlssovala, The distance between them is fifty-three fifty-three miles. |