The Indianapolis Journal

THE DANUBE'S IRON GATE.
—Its Contemplated Removal Meeting with Opposition—Eighty Miles of Rapids.
LONDON, Oct. 13.—The movement to blast away the obstructions in the Danube river, known as the "Iron Gate," is one in which all Europe is interested, but it is doubtful if the project will be carried through, owing to political objections. The Danube is, next to the Volga, the largest river in Europe. In an air-line the distance from the sources of the river to the mouth is 1,820 miles. The river, when it enters the Austrian empire, is navigable, and there are in the limits of Austro-Hungary 820 miles of the Danube. After the river leaves Austro-Hungary it passes through the Klisura Pass, and here occurs the greatest obstacles to navigation. Narrowed down to less than one-half its former breadth, the river forms, in the course of eighty miles, seven rapids and whirlpools, of which those in the so-called Iron Gate, near old Orsova, are the most violent. At the Iron Gate the river pours through a defile 7,500 feet long and 650 feet wide, a fall of sixteen feet and a rapidity of ten to fifteen feet a second over a number of reefs and ledges. This rapid was a terror to navigators for centuries, but some years ago a channel was cut through the ledge, by which vessels pass from Vienna to Galatz on the lower river without a portage. In ancient times this portion of the river course was avoided by a canal of which some vestiges still remain. The removal of the obstructions of the cataracts and narrows at the Iron Gate, or at the point where the Austro-Hungary, Servia and Roumania boundaries meet, was attempted in 1781, and again in 1834. Both attempts were abandoned because of the opposition of the Austrian government. In 1883 the question was again taken up, and arrangements were made for the final execution of the important and difficult work of engineering. On June 4 of that year an agreement was reached by which the Hungarian government undertook the regulation of the river. The agreement of Servia and Roumania was obtained. The cost of the improvement was to be reimbursed by the levy of tolls for the period of ninety years. The general plan as adopted was worked out by Mr. McAlpine, an American engineer. Later, complications came up with Roumania and with the commission having in charge the improvement of the lower Danube. Under the treaty of Berlin, one of the mouths of the Danube was put in Russian territory, and Austria held to the theory that many of the improvements at the mouth of the river were dictated by political policy. The commercial nations of Europe were more interested in the improvement of the Danube than Austria, and it is now stated that the old conservative sentiment that stopped the work on the Iron Gate fifty years ago has so far prevailed in the government councils as to suspend further work on improvements.