Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-08-29
~ . AsHTABULA, oH1O SATURDAY, AUGUsTI2e 1874

alter part reside the owner and his
wife, and the rapidly increasing fam
lily, who eat, sleep, cook and live
in a single low room, not large
enough in which to swing cat bv
the tail. When the pair have saved
a few guilders, they buy a larger
boat, and, by this time the family
numbers five to eight children, and
the eldest son is old enough to steer
or take his or her turn at towing.
the family has become probably well
enough off to sell the little boat and
purchase one of greater burden, re-
quiring horse to pull it. One OF
the children guides the horse, an
other steers, while the mother cooks,
washes, and sews, and the father
smokes and "bosses" the business
generally. There are thousands OF
children thus raised in Holland. The
children are born on a canal-boat
When they marry they purchase Z
caual-boat, or their parents give
them one. They spend all their lives
in canal-boat and when thev die
of cid age, the sad event OCCURS in
the little cabin of canal-boat.
The canals of Holland are
AS NUMEROUS AS ROADS
in other countries, and afford ample
means of conveyance in every direc
ton. A person looking down upor
Holland, from a balloon would see g
network of canals extending in eve
ry direction, crossing each other at
right-angles, and moving along them
would be seen the white sails OF
thousands of crafts; and scattered
all over the country, singly, and IL
focks, would be observed the trav-
cling arms of the wind-mills, flap.
ping on their wings like great birds
Every city and town has it's own
system of canals and wind-mills, and
the canals all connect with each 9TH
er by means of locks, which the
Dutch claim to have invented, and
which are hardly less useful than
the wind-mills in regulating the flow
and the height of the water in the
low country. A person may take {
boat anywhere in Holland, and sal
all over the country in any direction
Along the top of the embankments
constructed from the earth taken
from the canal will nearly always be
found wagon-road, which answers
also as tow-path.
The high-roads of Holland, con
Meeting the principal towns are near
ly all
PAVED WITH BRICK.
Nearly all the streets in the citiel
are also paved with brick. There
are no stones in Holland, excep
what are imported from Norway o.
Germany, but their place is supplied
by a small, tough, hard brick, called
''klinkers,' which are placed edge
wise close together, and the inter
stices filed with sand. The road
bed is first carefully smoothed anC
rolled, and the arch or crown of the
road is about eight or ten inches
while the width of the brick-paveC
way is usually about twelve feet, O
sufficient for two teams to pass eacl
other. The curb which holds tn
pavement in place is simply large
sized, hard-burnt brick set in tn,
ground endwlse to the depth of, say
ten inches.
I was shown roads which wer,
brick-paved in the way described
which had lasted hundred years
with little repairing, and still looked
smooth, fine and good. A FRIEND
whom l met here took me out int
the country the other day, ten miles
over. one of those old brick-pavet
roads, to look at Dutch farms, cat
tie, crops, etc. 1t was a smooth
hard, pleasant highway, centur!
old, and which had been subjected
to much travel. l noticed that mos
of the streets in Antwerp, Rotter
dam, Lyden, the Hague, and Amster
dam, were paved with brick. Tn,
average cost of thus paving a high
way twelve feet wide is about 81, ,OOC
per mile. There are
THOUSANDS OF MILES
of such roads in Holland. The cross
roads and local roads consist merel,
of loose sand or mud, and at all sea
sons are wretchedly bad, and in we
weather are hardly passable. Wer
it not for the large cost of paving
road, there is no apparent reasol
Why klinker brick would not answe
a good purpose on the prairie-road
of Illinois.
1t is a mistaken notion that, tn
coast of Holland consists of an arti
fetal wall all the way from Dunkirl
to the Ems. For the greater part o
this distance of $50 or 500 miles, thr
sea has created dunes or sand-hllls
From the Scheldt in Belgium, to tn,
Helder,son the Zuider Zee, $50 miles
the dunes are almost continuous
with only here and there an open
ing which required artificial filling
This sand ridge varies in width iron
few hundred yards to one or tw,
miles, and from few feet abov
high-tide level to forty or fifty feet
In many places hillocks are throw
up, which resemble the sand-hill
seen at Michigan City and along tn
south shore of Lake Michigan. T
check the dispersion of the sand an'
keep it from being blown into th'
country in injurious quantities, th'
dunes are sown regularly every
year with species of coarse, reed
grass, which grows near the sea- anc
whose roots spread out to great dis
tances, and thereby hold fast
THE SAND,
and cover the surface like a ma
T,;tb = succession of verdant vegeta
t;on which, decaying, accumulate
mon it a layer of earth capable O
supporting a scrubby, tenacious fir
80 which still further holds I'll,