[309] Idem, p. 163. Much the largest proportion of the lands so reclaimed, though for the most part lying above low-water tidemark, are at a lower level than the Lincolnshire fens, and more subject to inundation from the irruptions of the sea.
[310] Die Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein, iii, p. 151.
[311] The purely agricultural island of Pelworm, off the coast of Schleswig, containing about 10,000 acres, annually expends for the maintenance of its dikes not less than £6,000 sterling, or nearly $30,000.—J. G. Kohl, Inseln und Marschen Schleswig's und Holstein's, ii, p. 394.
The original cost of the dikes of Pelworm is not stated.
"The greatest part of the province of Zeeland is protected by dikes measuring 250 miles in length, the maintenance of which costs, in ordinary years, more than a million guilders [above $400,000]. * * * The annual expenditure for dikes and hydraulic works in Holland is from five to seven million guilders" [$2,000,000 to $2,800,000].—Wild, Die Niederlande, i, p. 62.
One is not sorry to learn that the Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands had some compensations. The great chain of ring dikes which surrounds a large part of Zeeland is due to the energy of Caspar de Robles, the Spanish governor of that province, who in 1570 ordered the construction of these works at the public expense, as a substitute for the private embankments which had previously partially served the same purpose.—Wild, Die Niederlande, i, p. 62.
[312] Staring, Voormaals en Thans, p. 163.
[313] Voormaals en Thans, pp. 150, 151.
[314] Staring, Voormaals en Thans, p. 152. Kohl states that the peninsula of Diksand on the coast of Holstein consisted, at the close of the last century, of several islands measuring together less than five thousand acres. In 1837 they had been connected with the mainland, and had nearly doubled in area.—Inseln u. Marschen Schlesw. Holst., iii, p. 262.
[315] The most instructive and entertaining of tourists, J. G. Kohl—so aptly characterized by Davies as the "Herodotus of modern Europe"—furnishes a great amount of interesting information on the dikes of the Low German seacoast, in his Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein. I am acquainted with no popular work on this subject which the reader can consult with greater profit. See also Staring, Voormaals en Thans, and De Bodem van Nederland, on the dikes of the Netherlands.