FIGHTING THE ENEMY IN HOLLAND.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1025, 23 February 1869, Page 3

FIGHTING THE ENEMY IN HOLLAND.

(Prom "Once a "VVtrek," Nov. 28.) (Concluded from our last.) "TnE rolling Zuyder Zee" of the song is a '. remarkable portion of Holland, having a 1 wonderful history. There is yet standing, amid its treacherous sandbanks and wide - waste of water, a sample or two of the earth which was there long, long ago, in the olden time before the outer waters broke in upon the now drowned territory. The sample consists of three islands, which are too high for the waves to drown, and which are yet inhabited by descendants of those who originally peopled the drowned territory. These landmarks, ever quaking from the force of the sea— the inhabitants trembling from the fear of being swept away, despite their embankments — stand in the water quaint memorials of hoar antiquity. Those who inhabit them are a peculiar and strikingly original people, altogether of another time than the present ; they are so many relics of an old and remote race, speaking an old language, living on old traditions, and keeping up the old customs and manners that were known to the old Batavian and Erisian people. Marken, Urk, and Shokland, with their peoples, who are half fishers and half farmers, are truly wonders of the romantic Zuyder Zee. In contradistinction to the North Sea, this great sheet of water is oalled the South (or Zuyder) Sea, and it has played, and still plays, quite as exciting a part in the physical history of the Netherlands as the greater water without. ■ It washes ■ the larger proportion of . the province of Friesland, a small part of Overyssel, the G-uelder- j land, and a, large portion of North Holland ; but it is the first-named of these provinces — ill-fated Friesland, so rich in its fine pasture land — that has suffered most from this ; remdrseless water. The Zuyder Zee is about eighty miles in length from Midsland to Spokenburg, and from Enkhuizen to Bloesy is thirty miles broad ; but from Enkhuizen to the shore at Sandch it is only half that breadth. It is said to be 200 miles in circumference. An examination of the map of Holland will at once show that the Zuyder Zee is the result of an accident. The broken pieces of coast, which one Dutch writer has picturesquely termed a necklace of Islands, that show the original contour of the land, and which another writer said was the result of the breaking of" the narrow rope of sand which originally kept the sea from the drowned land, are the relica of the old ramparts that kept back the waters of the North Sea, and they stand there as evidence that once upon a time there was no Zuyder Zee. The Lake of Flevo, we are told, formed the basis of the present great sheet of water. The sea, it is said, broke into it in the year 1170 ; but its formation is not a matter of speculation, it is historical, and the Zuyder Zee, occupying a space of 1200 square miles, was gradually formed in the twelfth and. thirteenth centuries. It took a long time to break through tho dunes that protected the land whore the waves of the sea now rage. The so-called necklace of islands is, howevor, all that remains to mark the barrier that at one time kept out the ocean. Nature took a century and a half to accomplish this work, which man has now determined to undo. How long will man take to dry up this vast sheet of water ? A look at the map will convince the reader that Friesland and North Holland were long ago one continent, through which ono of the numerous branches of the Rhine flowed to the outer sea. The history of the formation of the Zuyder Zee is pretty well known. There exists an old map of the Netherlands (1584) on which the drowned country is restored from the best authorities, and in this publication the province of North Holland appears to be a continuation of Friesland, with its numerous lakes and hollows. In course of time bits of the outer land were eaten away by the tide, so that the sea was enabled to join some of the lakes. In 1205 the island of Wieringen formed a portion of the mainland, and so at one time did the Isle of Marken. It took fifty years to form these islands by successive overflows of the water. Many towns and villages in timo became submerged, rich districts were laid under water, and thousands of people were drowned. During the century and a half it took to accomplish the work of submergence, the outer sea continued to work with all its energy, and was relentless in its perseverance, as indeed it still is, although baffled at present in its destructive work by the superior cunning of man. There is no doubt but that some day the Zuyder Zee will be drained from tho mouth of the Yssel to Enkhuizen. If that can be done it will add another province to Holland, with room for 200,000 of a population. The drainage of 1 the Yssel, which is now going on, will yield 15,000 acres of new land to the country. Tho Dutch are most indebted to the great Father of rivers for aiding them in the construction of their country, by bringing to their hands most of the materials of which it is made. The river has been a benefit as well as a danger to them. It is difficult to judge whether, at the period when the water first gushed out of its mountain home in the far away Alps of the G-rieons, th<a course of the Rhine in Holland was exactly the same as we now find it, or whether it has frequently changed. At present the river has several outlets to the sea, and we know that more than once some of its mouths having silted up, the water had to force for itself a new passage. As now understood, and as can easily be seen on any good map, the Rhine enters Holland a little below Emmerich, where it is 2300 feet broad, flowing on in an unterrupted stream till it reaches the delta, at a place called Tennerden, where it splits into two waters. One of these, the left branch, called tho "Waal, unites with the Maas near Fort Lovestein, and is there known as the Merwode till it gets below Dort, after which it is called the Old Maas. Half a league above Arnheim, the Rhine — that is, the right branch, which retains the name — throws a branch into tho New Yssel, originally a canal, cut by Drnsus, to connect the Rhine with the Old Yssel, which has its source in Germany, and falls into tho Zuyder Zee, and forms one of tho chief obstacles to tho draining of that great sheet of water, which has been proposed by M. Gevons d'Endegeest, an enthusiastic engineer. Flowing on to "Wijk by Duarstede, tho water again divides, throwing out on the left an arm callod the Lek, which, uniting with the New Maas near Ysselmonde, falls into the sea below the Brielle of Holland. The other branch is the Krommo Rhine, which divides at Utrecht into the Vecht and Old Rhine — the latter entering tho sea at tho great works of Katwyk. Holland is also indebted to, and is in danger from, the Maas (or Mouse), which enters the Netherlands above Eysden in Limburg, and, after dividing into two • branches, reunites near Brielle, reaching the sea at Oostvoom, and likewise to the wandering Scheldt, which touches the Netherlands at Firt Bath, and after helping to carry territory to the numerous islands of Zealand, its earth-carrying waves finally reach the German Ocean. The Rhine, then, [ roundly speaking, is the water that has given Holland to the Dutch. The enemy of the Netherlands requires to i bo fought in tho most scientific way, there- , fore the latest knowledge of hydraulic science i may always be obtained in Holland. "Whilst i somo countries have a powerful organisation ■ to look after* and protect their land, the Dutch Government is obliged to direct its

chief attention to the water. The greatest power of the Netherlands is centred in the Waterstaat, or administration of the waters. It is a power to which tho greatest in the land must bow. On those fearful nights of storm that sometimes occur in the early spring time, when the outer waters of the German Sea are fiercely lashing 1 the natural and artificial bulwarks which at certain points protect the land, the utmost anxiety is felt by all classes. "Watchmen are stationed at particular places, and if they give an alarm the loud roaring of cannon and the tolling of many bells summon the people to repel the common foe. "Weak points are watched, and wherever the sea is likely to find a vulnerable point, there the whole strength of the defence is lavished. Strong sheets of canvas, or blankets made for the purpose are spread upon the wound. Stores of many kinds of materials suitable for the defence are to be found here and there on the line of danger. Straw mats and masses of wicker-work, to prevent the clay of the embankment from being washed away by tho angry action of the waves, are largely provided. The sea dashes upon the dykes with tremendous force, and although the granite- covered bulwarks appear like mountains in such a flat country, yet they are at times so shaken by the force of the waves as to terrify the wonder-stricken inhabitants, whom history has taught to fear the element that has hitherto been most fraught with disaster to them. The rivers, too, if the ice on the lower portion of the water has not melted before the ice of the upper reaches, become so gorged that they annually threaten to burst their banks and overflow the country. On the occasiqivjof • an alarm of inundation being sounded? which occurs under those conditions of wind and water already alluded to, every human being capable of assisting in th c work of defence is called to the scene ; and not till the tide is receding — the danger being past for a time— have they a moment to think of their own affairs, and even that change of thought is brief, as in a few hours the tide will once more flow against the land, menacing the country with renewed danger. In Holland individual interests must, give way in presence of the general enemy. The Waterstaat, to whose charge the'regulation of the waters has been relegated, may be described as an army of engineers. When it is known that on a change of wind may hang the future prosperity of the Netherlands, that a few rabbits may so undermine the dunes as to let in the sea upon the land, or that a breed of rats may imperil the safety of the dykes, it will be obvious that the functions of this body (the Waterstaat) require to be fulfilled with unflinching particularity. The engineers are trained at a public seminary specially endowed for this service, which is to be found in the little town of Delffc, celebrated at one time for a very different industry, and selected from the fact of its being almost in the centre of the chief hydrographical works of the country. The College of Delft is not a mere theoretical seminary ; there are frequent opportunities of putting the lessons taught in practice, and for exercising the pupils in that which is to be the business of their lives. The necessity for such an institution will be obvious to the reader when he is reminded that eight out of the eleven provinces which constitute the country lie so much below the level of the sea that eighty-five per cent, of the area might at any moment be drowned. Of all the large acreage taken up by these eight provinces, only fifteen per cent, of its extent would, in the event of an inundation, be seen above the water I . Water catastrophes from the sea have been frequent in Holland. Kecords .of many of them are still extant. They begin a.d. 553 ; but even before that period, man, it is supposed, was struggling with the water to obtain a footing — building his dwelling-place on a terpen or mound, examples of which may still be seen in Friesland and in the Island of Marken. Some of the numerous inundations which are recorded were productive of great loss of life. In 1584, when Friesland was submerged by the Zuyder Zee, upwards of 100,000 of its inhabitants were drowned ; and three centuries and a half before that time the waters of the North Sea broke in upon the province of Groningen, and converted the fertile delta of the Ems into a vast expanse of water, now known as "furious," or Dollaii;. Although Robles, the Spanish governor, introduced in 1687 an improved mode of defence against the waters, a few more fearful inundations of the sea took place, the last being in 1825 ; and in 1861 there was a river catastrophe of great magnitude, when the Bhine burst its banks and submerged many hundred square miles of territory. It will readily be supposed that an important organisation like the the Waterstaat cannot be kept up without a very large exj penditure of money. Counting the cost for the last two hundred years, the expenditure has become something like three hundred millions sterling, which may be called the purchase-money of the country — a wonderful sum for th© small bit of land that lies between the Dollart and the Scheldt. The annual interest of such a sum must of course be enormous ; nor do the rents paid at all represent it, for there I ia still a million leqwiied annually for *e« i pairs and wages. The dykes of the Helder and of West Kapelle alone require an annual expenditvire of £6000 to keep them in that complete repair which is so necessary for the protection of the land which they guard. There is one circumstance of which the Dutch are proud, and it is that there is work to show for all the money expended. If the canal at Katwyk cost £40,000, it is there to-day to speak for itself, and there are hundreds of miles of granite-faced dykes to attest the sums paid for labour and material. It has been said of the great dyke which keeps the Island of Walcheren dry, that if it had been constructed of solid copper it would have cost less originally than the sums paid for keeping it in order. It is an old saying that Porsoverance overcomes many difficulties, and the perseverance that in Holland drained the Beemster and the Lake of Haarlem is only another example of tho truth of the proverb, The functions of tho Waterstaat being to regulate the waters of the country, it is interesting to know how that body carries on its business. The standard of water level in Holland is the Amsterdam pile, on which is marked a scale by which the engineers, and the people as well, note the rise or fall of the waters of tho German Ocean and Zuyder Zee. On the Amsterdamsche Peil the mean water level is represented by zero, and the initials O. A., zero of Amsterdam, orZ, P., zero of Peil, aro always used to denote the water-heights or levels of the various systems of water- works in Holland, which are exceedingly varied. All the water- works of the country take their level from the index just named, and the greatest nicety requires to be observed in all water calculations as an error of an inch or two might play havoc with the country. This pile has existed for two hundred years, and it is the standard of all the hydraulic undertakings of the Netherlands. Nearly every reader has read of the draining of the great Lake of Haarlem, and of the celebrated Leigh water-engines which accomplished the work. The usual everyday drainage of the country, however, is accomplished by windmills, which either drive Archimedean screws or some other kind of machinery for pumping from one level to another. These mills will be presently alluded to in detail." Meantime I

wish to gjyeabrief descriptil on $f the drain-" ing of-the Haarlemermee* before de^crifeiii& * the prevailing mode" "of making, and keeping a polder, which is the name given, to such ground as has been drained and turned to agricultural uses. The draining of the great Lake of Haarlem is a striking example of the proverb already quoted. That immense sheet of water was long an eyesore to the patient Dutch people. Its history may be briefly told. At first— say ; in 1531 —the site df the inland sea of Haarlem was occupied by four insignificant bits of water; Gradually these lakelets came together, ■■•■ or rather the land between them melted into their waters, and ultimately one or two yillages which had flourished on their banks were submerged, and the stormy L^ake of Haarlem, about forty miles in circumference, was the result. This sheet of water ultimately became so troublesome that it was resolved to drain it, in order to save expense and trouble, for the keeping up of the dykes- necessary to prevent it from extending, involved the expenditure of -a -very large sum of money, and in stormy weather the water was not infrequently precipitated over the ramparts, to the danger of the ground below. A plan was put out as longf back as 1648, by John Adams Leigh Water, for draining the lake by means of 140 windmills ; but another power was ultimately eniployed to drain the Haarlemenheer-rsteam. I recently visited the house .containing,: one of the Leigh water-engines — for, out of compliment to the origirial'projector of that drainage schemey the engine, was named after him. At the/ time of its construction, it was one, if not the greatest ejigine of the kind that -h^d been made, being: able -to discharge sixty-three tons 6f wafer peif stroke; The worjk before the contractors was stupendous—^nb less than the clearing away of 45,000 aci*es of water^ estimated at a million tons ; but it was in idue time accomplished, and great ,as. was the. cost of that gigantic " dry-making," the operation was a profitable one, the first sale of landabout a sixth part of< the surface laid barehaving realised over- £163,000.