around it would make the lake twenty or thirty feet deep of course in ancient times when a portion of the country became thus it was for the people to consider whether they would abandon it or try to pump all that water out again by means of the wind mills they would think that if they it out it would be some years before the land would be good again for the salt in the water would tend to make it barren so they would sometimes abandon it and put all their energy into to strengthen the around it in order to prevent the tion from spreading any farther for water in holland to spread and to destroy life and property just as fire does in other countries the lakes and rivers where they are higher than the land are liable to burst their after heavy rains falling in the country or great floods coming down the rivers or high tides rise from the sea and so run into each other and the people have continually to contend against this danger just as in other countries they do against spreading in the case of spreading fire water is the great friend and of man and in the case correspondence what has become of the holland lake of these spreading of water it is wind that he upon the only mode that the dutch had to pump out the water in former times was the wind mills when the rains or the tides the land they called upon the wind to help them lift the water out to where it could flow away again there was a time two or three hundred years ago when all the wind mills that the people could make seem not to have been enough to the work and there was one place in the centre of the country where the water continued to spread more and more � breaking through as it spread from one to another � until at last it swallowed up such an extent of country as to form a lake thirty miles in this lake at last extended very near to the gates of and it was called the holland lake you will find it laid down on all the maps of holland except those which have been printed within a few years the reason why it is not laid down now is because a few years ago finding that the wind mills were not strong enough to pump it out the government concluded to try what virtue there might be in steam so they first repaired and strengthened the range of that extended round the lake in fact they made them double all around leaving a space between for a canal in holland steam engines hare accomplished what wind mills could not they made both the inner and outer of these water tight so that the water should neither back into the lake again after it was out nor out into the beyond the way they made them water tight was by them on both sides with a good thick of clay when the the lake were completed the set up three very powerful steam engines and gave to each one ten or twelve enormous to work these engines were made on such a grand scale that they lifted over sixty of water at every stroke but yet so was the lake and so vast the quantity of water to be drained that though there were three of the engines working at this rate and though they were kept at work night and day it took them a year and a half to lay the ground dry the work was however at last accomplished and now what was the bottom of the lake is all converted into pastures and green fields but they still have to keep the going all the time to lift out the water that falls over the whole space in rain you may judge that the amount is very large that falls on a district thirty miles round they calculate that the quantity which they have to pump up now every year in order to keep the from an ot the ice in holland being again is over fifty millions of and that is a quantity larger than you can ever conceive of and yet the piece of ground is so large that the cost of this makes only about fifty for each acre of land which is very little besides these great spreading which holland has always been subject to from the lakes and rivers in the middle of the country there has always been a greater danger still to be feared from the ice of the and other great rivers coming from the interior of the country the you know flows from south to north and often the ice in the spring breaks up in the middle of the course of the river before it gets in holland the broken ice in coming down the stream towards the north is kept within the banks of the stream where the banks are high but when it reaches holland it is not only no longer so confined but it finds its flow by the ice which there still remains solid and so it gets and forms and that makes the water rise very fast at one time when such a dam was formed the water rose seven feet in an hour at such times the pressure becomes so prodigious that the along the bank of the river are burst and water band gravel and ice all pour over together upon in holland terrible reads his letter the surrounding country and and destroy every thing that comes in its way some of the caused in holland by these floods and have been terrible in ancient times they were worse than they are now because now the are stronger and are better guarded at one that occurred 