North by rail to Merv, on the main line of the Russian-Turk.-Sib. Railroad.
 
     6.  The third route is to Zahedan, in southeastern Iran, (by rail
via Sukkur and Quetta), and thence north by motor road to Ashkhabad, on
 the Russian-Turk. Sib. Railroad.  This motor road as far north as
Meshed is fairly good, and can handle in the neighborhood of 10,000 tons
per month; but road north of Meshed, ( especially between Quchan and
Ashkhabad) , is "very bad".  This portion of the road would probably limit
 the tonnage capacity of the entire route to about 2,000 tons a month.  The
chief difficulty in using this route is that the British are already using 
the majority of its facilities to supply their forces in the Middle East.
 
     7.  The Turk.-Sib. Railroad is single-tracked throughout, but this
presents no difficulty, as it can easily carry all tonnnage delivered to it
by the connecting motor roads.
     
     8.  There are four possible routes from the Turk.-Sib. Railroad
the Chunking; the first three meet at, or farther west than, Urumchi,
and for the remaining distance (some 2,300 miles) all supplies going to
China over these routes would have to be sent over a single motor road.
The exact tonnage capacity of this road is not known, but not more than
2,000 tons have as yet been transported over it in any one month.  The Chi-
nese Government hopes to receive 4,000 tons a month by this route; this
may be possible if certain improvements are made.
 
     9.  The first of these roads starts at the Russian railhead, a few
miles east of Dzhalyl Abad; it follows the age-old caravan trail through
the precipitous Pamir Mountains and across Sinkiang to Urumchi by way of
Kashgar.  The second road leaves the Turk.-Sib. Railroad at Alma Ata
and goes Dzharkent and on the Shikho (about 100 miles west of Urumchi)
where it meets the third road.  The third road leaves the Turk.-Sib. Rail-
road at Sergiopol and goes to Shikho by way of Chuguchak.
 
         10.  The last two mentioned roads are known as the Northwestern
Route, Red Route.  At the present time, the road from Sergipol is the
chief one used, because it crossed neither the Pamir Mountains, as does the 
Kashgar Route; nor does the swampy terrain encountered along the Dzharkent Route.
 
         11.  There is a fourth route from the Turk.-Sib. Railroad to
Chungking.  It starts at Semipalatinsk and goes through Outer and Inner Mon-
golia, connecting with other three roads at Lanchow.  No definite infor-
mation is available at the present time as to the tonnage capacity of this road,
but it is considerably longer than the other three roads.
 
Conclusion: The British are already using the port facilities of Karachi
and the railroad inland almost to capacity in order to supply their Middle
Eastern forces; the primitive state of the roads from the Russian-CHinese
frontier to the Chinese- Japanese front limit the present capacities
of the route.  In order to send supplies to China by this route, either the
British would have to curtail their utilization of the exisiting facilities,
or these facilities would have to be augmented; the Northwestern Chinese
Road would also have to be improved.