ZUIDER ZEE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 1 September 1928, Page 26

ZUIDER ZEE

HUGE RECLAMATION "WORKS. The gigantic task of converting the greater part of the Zuider Zee into rich arable land is now well under way, and it .may be that in thirty years the very name of the famous inland sea will bo but a memory, writes a special correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." An area of no less than 552,504 acres, or 10 per cent, of the present arable land of Holland, is expected to be added to tho mainland, and the remainder of the Zuider Zee will become the Yssel Lake, cut off from tho North Sea by a huge dyke eighteen and a half miles long, running from Wieringon to Friesland, with outlets provided by sluicegates at either end. The reclaimed land will consist of four polders, each of which will be like a shallow basin, surrounded by land and water, with a floor from 6ft to 16ft below the normal sea-level. A canal system, widening in place to form lakes, will follow the present coastline, for purposes of shipping and drainage. Tho reclaiming is a gradual process. Good progress was made last year, and the island of Wieringen is now joined to the mainland. A clay island has been built up near the Frisian Coast, where the locks are being constructed, and the main dam across the Zuider Zee is expected to be completed in 1931. Tho first reclamations south of Wieringen are already in hand, and experimental reclamations at Medemblik havo actually been brought under cultivation. The salinity of the soil is much less than was anticipated, and the normal six or seven years' "unsalting" period for reclaimed land will be considerably reduced. In the Budget for 1928 provision is made for an expenditure of 19,913.000 florins, which will bo devoted toWthe lock-works' at Wieringen and Kornwerderzand, and to beginning work on the Breeaand dam. The total cost of the operations of enclosure and reclamation has been estimated at 454,000,000 guilders (£37,----833,400 at the present rate of exchange). The actual value of the land reclaimed at full cultivation value will bo 510,000,000 guilders, and the general advantage to tho country as a whole will be considerable. The creation of the Yssel Lake will solve the perennial problem of fresh-water supplies in times of summer drought for Friesland and North Holland; drainage in general will be improved, traffic facilitated, and fresh-water fisheries will be established. At present the traveller across the doomed Zuider Zee is more conscious of the magnitude of the task before tho Dutch engineers than of the imminent realisation of their project. The interminable clank of the dredgers at work, ana the sight of the heavy barges laden with rock-clay going down to their floating cranes, may remind him that Nature is not to bo conquered by rapid and spectacular methods. The typical Dutch qualities of thoroughness and patience are here matched against an opponent that will test them to tho full, but the prize of victory will bo nothing less than a rich new province for the Netherlands.