NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20628, 29 July 1930, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MAJESTIC LANDSCAPES. *' The influence of landscape, on character is deep and incalculable." writes Mr. John Drinkwater in the Austin Magazine. " Natural grandeur would seem to he inadequately reflected in the people born to it. Switzerland and the Aiizonns are not remarkable as' sources of inspiration. Burns came not from the Gtampians, but from the uneventful lowlands of Ayrshire. Wordsworth lived among ' the noblest scenery in England, and loved it, but his poetic lit* wa< largely an effort to subdue the majesty of Helvellyn to the intimacies of a cottage and its garden. Where in England are the painters who have been taught by spectacular Nature as were a few quiet men by their Suffolk and Norfolk levels? Perhaps it is that the more dramatic manifestations of earth discourage rather than invite emulation. Certain it. is that visioi and invention have attended more closely upon her ietifences. The Dutch and Flemish masters found revelation in her domestic moods, the English muse lias never been happier than ii Warwickshire or the Thames water-meadows. It is not a question of beauty; any hedgerow in primrose time or spinney of larch-buds can match the Alps or the Golden Gate in beauty. It is a question of scale and composition. The vaster and the more elaborate these become, the loss, it. would seem, is the soil of imagination fertilised. The sublimer convulsions of Nature make us marvel, they do not make us prophesy."

WINNING LAND FROM THE SEA. Discussing the plans for the reclamation of the Zuyder Zee. Engineering says that, Holland, in the days of the Roman legions, was a land of dark forests and morasses, the latter only to be traversed bv long wooden causeways. According In Tac.itus. in the centre of this land was a lake, taking the, waters of the'rivers Amslel and Yssel, and discharging them to the sea by a- now untraceable river. On'the instructions of Nero, it, is stated, somo kind of communication was made between the Yssel and a. branch of the Rhine, with the icsult that, the feeders of the lake were increased. As time went, on the lake engulfed the forests and extended into wider and wider marshes, till, finally, it- destroyed the barriers between it and the North Sea. Widespread inundations succeeded one another, the northern coast became cut, tip into islands, mi eh as Toxol, and, somewhere about, (he end of the eleventh century, the. conquest .'if the sea over the land v.us complete. Later, prosperous cities grew up mi the banks of the now-established seaj and its fin I her extension was stopped by the building of the well-known dykes and embankments. During this period the country serins to have been large enough to support its people, but with the growth of the industrial period the. pressure of an in> teasing population began to be felt, and endeavours wore made to relieve, this by draining some of the inland waters, and by some coastal reclamation. Now, population has again overtaken this area, ami the. Netherlands, with its 561 people per square mile, is, excepting Monaco, the second most densely populated country in the world. As a, result, a, large portion of I lie area that, the Romans unwittingly doomed to disappear under water is to he recovered by the consi nut inn of an embankment between North Holland and Fiiesland for the enclosure and draining of about 1450 square miles of (he Znyder Zee. A central lake is to he left. This will have an area of somo 422 square miles. Allowing for canals, drains and embankments, the'drainage of the remaining portion will afford lands 85!) square miles in extent available for cultivation, an aroa which will increase Ibo size of the kingliotii ly ovci 6.7 per cent.