The Trans-Siberian railway was a military necessity if Russia was to exercise dominion throughout Siberia and maintain a port on the Yellow Sea or the Sea of Japan.
The Sea of Okhotsk, separated from the Pacific by the Kurile Archipelago and from the Sea of Japan by the islands of Sakhalin and Yezo, is notorious as one of the worst seas of the world, owing to its dense fogs and its masses of floating ice.
The Pacific Ocean, which washes the eastern shores, moulds their outline into much greater diversity than does the Sea of Japan which washes the western shores.
The east coast, from Cape Shiriya (Shiriyazaki) in the north, to Cape Inuboye (Inuboes4ki) near Tokyo Bay, though abounding in small indentations, has only two large bays, those of Sendai and Matsushima; but southward from Tokyo Bay to Cape Satta (Satanomisaki) in KiOshi there are many capacious inlets which offer excellent anchorage, as the Gulf of Sagami (Sagaminada), the Bays of Suruga (Surugawan), lie (Isenumi) and Osaka, the Ku Channel, the Gulf of Tosa (Tosonada), &c., Opening into both the Pacific and the Sea of Japan and separating Shikoku and KiQshi from the main island as well as from each other, is the celebrated Inland Sea, one of the most picturesque sheets of water in the world.
From this harbour to Osaka Japans waist measures onl 77 m., and as the great lake of Biwa and some minor sheets of wate break the interval, a canal may be dug to join the Pacific and th Sea of Japan.
