A halt was called at this juncture. The outposts of steel were three in number, Orenburg, Tioumen on the Asiatic side of the Urals and connected with Ekaterinburg, and Zlatoost. A decision was necessary to determine which of these three railheads should be the jumping-off point for the long toil through Siberia. Three surveys were made, and as a result of prolonged consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the respective routes from every point of view, among the most important of which was the question of cost, Zlatoost was selected as the most favourable starting-point. From that point the location was by way of Tcheliabinsk-Kourgan-Petropavlovsk-Omsk-Tomsk-Krasnoiarsk to Nijneoudinsk, as this offered the shortest length of line, traversed the most densely populated and most fertile country, and at the same time could be built far cheaper than either of the alternative routes. It was recognised that the line would entail the expenditure of a huge sum of money, no matter how cheaply it was constructed, and that there could be no hope of any return upon the investment for many years to come owing to the unsettled character of the country. Accordingly it was decided to avoid all pretentious engineering exploits--in fact, to build the line upon pioneer principles. A five-foot gauge was adopted to harmonise with European Russia, and in order to cut the cost of construction down to the lowest possible figure the lightest material was employed, the rails, for instance, only weighing 54 pounds per yard. It was realised that the paramount condition was to open up the land and its resources without delay, and to overhaul the line as traffic increased, thereby bringing it gradually into conformity with the generally accepted standards of a modern railway. As the project was of such far-reaching significance to the Russian Empire it was resolved that it should be carried out as a national undertaking. Every ounce of material required was to be fashioned in Russian workshops--there was only one important departure from this decision, and that was the construction of the huge ice-breaking ferries on Lake Baikal, which, being beyond the capacity of the Russian builders, were designed and constructed at the Elswick works of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Company, Limited--and that it should be built by Russian labour under Russian engineers with Russian money. It was an Imperial enterprise from end to end. To govern the work of construction a national committee was established, composed of interested ministers, under the presidency of the Grand Duke Heritier, the present Tsar, who upon his ascent to the throne retained his seat upon this commission. Indeed, the Emperor has displayed the greatest interest in this undertaking from its inception, and, in fact, inaugurated the work by laying the stone commemorating the turning of the first sod at Vladivostok on May 18, 1891, during his visit to the East.