The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-09-04
HOLLAND.
How the Phlegmatic Dutchman Keeps
his Head Above Water.

| S@S~-N&A4N@s
How the PhIegmatic Dutchman Keeps
his Head Above Water.
/ In some parts of Holland the sea at
: high tide is thirty feet above the level
: of the face of the country, and at low
tide deep enough to drown the tallest
man. Along some parts of the Rhine,
Z during the spring -freshets, the water is
higher than the roofs of the houses of
Z the cities and towns along its banks.
! On the sea-coast, the inhabitants who
} live behind the dykes can feel them
vibrate from the blows of the huge
waves, and can hear the breakers roar
ing and raging above their heads, in
their mad efforts to engulf the listeners
The reader may we'll imagine that Hol-
land is delightful country in which to
live for people of nervous temperament
or weak nerves. But the stolid Dutch
man calmly drinks his beer and smokes
his pipe, or sleeps through the storm,
dreaming not and fearing not of danger.
The construction of the ocean and
river dykes for the protection of Hol-
land, including only those bulwarks
and embankments erected at national
expense for common safety, have cost
the inhabitants of the Netherlands the
enormous sum of two thousand millions
of dollars since the time of their war of
independence against Spain, three GEN.
turies ago. How so small a country,
with such limited natural resources,
could afford to spend so prodigious
sum of money must always remain a
mystery. After the terrible war with
Philip II. of Spain, the population was
reduced, by butchery, starvation, dis |
ease, and migration, from 2, ,000, 900 to a !
miserable remnant of 100000 souls. |
| The dykes had been broken for the pur- |
| pose of drowning out the Spaniards F; |
but the desperate act ruined the inhabi- |
tants. The waves of the sea, for many |
years thereafter, washed over nearly |
the whole surface of Holland. Then |
commenced the mighty work of recon
structing the sea-walls, river dykes and |
embankments, and the expulson of the |
obtrusive water. Whole generations
labored and toiled during their lives on
this huge task; and indeed it could
hardly be considered completed until
the first part of this century but, in
truth, the work can never be considered
finished. The Dutchman can only keep
from drowning by continually repairing
and strengthening his dykes and oper-
ating his windmill pumps. Eternal
of liberty, but of existence.
A special college at Delft is set apart
for the instruction of engineers whose
duty it is to watch the state of the
winds, tides and waters, and guard
against all accidents from irruptions of
the ocean or the Rhine, and to see that
the pumps keep down the constantly
accumuIating waters in the low lands.
The national board of water engineers,
which includes men of high scientific
attainme nts, has most important duties
to perform and indeed, the existence
of Holland may be said to depend on
its skill and watchfulness. The annual
expense of keeping in repair the whole
system of dykes and dams, canals and
sluiceways, and operating the state wind
mills amounts to about $5, ,000, 900 year.
Everything is now in such perfect con-
dition that the operating and wear-and-
tear expenses are reduced to minimum.
The canals of Holland are as numer- ]
GUS as roads in other countries, and af- ]
ford ample means of conveyance In
every direction. A person looking down
upon Holland from balloon would see
a network of canals extending in every
direction, crossing each other at right i
angles; and moving along them would ]
be seen the white sails of thousands of l
crafts and scattered all over the coun- {
try, singly and in focks, would be OBJ {
served the revolving arms of the wind q
mills, Tapping their wings like great S
birds. Every city and town has its own '
system of canals and wind-mills, and /
the canals all connect with each other {
by means of locks, which the Dutch c
claim to have invented, and which are t
hardly less useful than the wind-mills j
in regulating the flow and the height of b
the water in this low country. A per- ?
son may take a boat anywhere in Hol- c
land, and sail all over the country in {
any direction. Along the top of the t
constructed from the d
earth taken from the canal will nearly IL
always be found a wagon road, which y
answers also as tow path. t.
The highroads of Holland, connect
ing the principal towns. are nearly all
paved with brick. Nearly all the
streets in the cities are also paved with
prick. There are no stones in Holland,
except what are imported rom Norway
,r Germany, but their place is supplied
oy a small, tough, hard brick, called
. 'klinkers, which are placed edgewise
,lose together, and the interstices filed
With sand. The roadbed is first care
ulIy Su1OObQ6u Huu TOll6u, duu bH6
lrch or crown of the road is about
light or ten inches while the width of
he brick-paved way is usually about
2 feet, or sufficient for two teams to
lass each other. The curb which holds
he pavement in place is simply q lar
,er-sized hand-burnt brick set in the =.
round endwise to the depth of, say, ''
o inches. n
I was shown roads which were brick VI
'aved in the way described. which had
asted a hundred years, with little re-
airing, and still looked smooth, fine,
nd good. A friend whom 1 met here 4,
ook me out into the country the other ~
ay, 10 miles, over one of those old
rick paved roads to look at Dutch
arms, cattle, crops, etc. 1t was a Il
mooth, hard, pleasant highway, a CEN
ury old, and which had been subjected
D much travel. noticed that most of
he streets in Antwerp, Rotterdam, Ly-
en-, the Hague, and Amsterdam, were
aved with brick. The average cost of
nus paving highway IL feet wide is
bout 81, 900 per mile. There are thou
ands of miles of such roads in Hol-
md. The crossroads and local roads
0nsist merely of loose sand or mud,
nd at all seasons are wretchedly bad,
nd in wet weather are hardly passable. pr
7ere it not for the large cost of paving cl,
road, there is no apparent reason why 10
Tinker brick would not answer a good la
urpose on the prairle-roads of Illinois. sa