The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1896-12-05
planning TO PUMP IT DRY
THE DUTCH ENGINEERS WILL TRY
THEIR SKILL ON ZUYDER ZEE.
Accomplishment VIII Cost S4S,OOO,-
900, but VIII Add $6oO,OOO,-
900 to Holland.

human endeavor Is about to be begun
from headquarters in this quaint old
Dutch city, says an Amsterdam cores
uondent. A group OF Dutch engineers,
controlling 5000 Dutch laborers, will out
do King Canute. for they will not only
command the tide to stop, but they will
make it stop. They will literally drive
the ocean back and wrest from it its very
bed, creating for this most extraordinary
nation a territory of 1877 square miles,
more than a 10th as much as all Holland
has today, many times larger than the
| Greater New York-a territory which, 1t
is believed, will add over 5000, O00O 900 to the
wealth of Holland.
Everyone knows in a general way that
Holland is the land of bikes and canals,
and that these bikes and canals have
been built to protect the land from being
overlooked by the sea. But no one can
possibly appreciate the real significance
of the battle with the roaring ocean
which the little nation has won until he
has seen those dykes and learned on the
| spot the story of their making. There
are in the country, 1860 square miles,
with four and half millions of people
If put to 1t, this territory is declared to
be amply able to support a population
six times as great. Eight hundred years
ago less than 600 square miles, an area
smaller than that which 1t is proposed to
reclaim within the next five years, was
beyond the reach of the oceans tides.
The small sections which were inhabitable
were only capable of supplying the most
primitive wants of man, for they con-
sisted of mere sand dunes Of hills cast
up by the sea and scattered by the wind
mostly misunderstanding at the bidding
of the two elements which had built them.
But the race of sturdy, unconquerable
men which has developed from the prim-
tive fishermen who lived on these barren
sand hills has fought back the sea and
defied the Winds until now there lies in
the place of the old-time bleak wave
beaten waste, what Butler cleverly de-
scribed as:
! A country which draws so feet of water,
In which man lives as in the hold of ma
ture;
And when theHea does in upon them
And drown a qbvince. does but spring
a leak.
And now man proposes to vastly in
crease the size of that hold" by frs
damming up the Zuyder Zee and ther
, pumping out the contents of the dam.
Zuyder Zee.
. The Zuyder Zee is a great bite stoler
. by the ocean from the north coast of Hol
= land, very much as Cape Cod bay is ;
great bite stolen by the ocean from thu
east coast of Massachusetts. The arm o
3 land holding Amsterdam at it's base an,
g running up to the Helder, and thence OF
I in islands separated by narrow channels
4. is, indeed, like Cape Cod in more way
a than one. But the entrance to the Guy
1 der Zee is much narrower than the en-
o trance to Cape Cod bay, hence the pos
d sibility of drainage
t The great dyke which engineers hav
n planned for many years, but which ha
Just become a commercial possibility
t will cut the Zuyder Zee off from tn
r. North sea considerably at the outer lin
lie it of De Nicer joining the island of Wiei
ingen at its western end and continuin
n from it's eastern end to a point betwee
al Hindelopen and Workum. This, excll
I sive of the island, is about 27lA mile
III This vast embankment will, Of course,
, of tremendous strength The failure
the best American engineers to bull
levees strong enough to hold the Mi
sissippi river in check, or, for instanc
- to protect the shores of Coney islar
x from the gnawing of the hungry sea, wi
m | give an idea of what these Dutchmt
or must accomplish.
Ito The great dyke which will bar the e
he trance to the Zuyder Zee will teach mar
er a lesson to the world of engineers.
ge flood will ever break 1t down. 1t is
| oP ri do hot h
he ever been discovered in an attempt
as slight his work on the dykes of Hollan
he that no contractor has ever been disco
EFT cred in or suspected of an attempt
lily furnish imperfect material for these va
10 bulwarks of the land. First of all fou
ne dations of thousands of piles-broug
ne at great expense from the German fores
zen will be driven both before and behi
~ the place where it has been decided
w build the dyke and on these prelimina
80, entertainments made Of bags of sand W
a. be built. From between these emban
ments the water will then be pump'
co. leaving the space in which the mast
ted bank" is to be built free and dry. T
are foundations for this viii be of basa
M also brought from Germany in pilla
IN about three feet long and six incl
-er. thick sextagonal and of piles.
cle It is estimated that not less than
ing 10000 of the finest piles and 10000 tons
Of basalt will be used in this foundati'
ant Then for the outer side of the dyke
top great wall of massive granite blocks v
mt be laid, and behind that earth, bound
II gether with plated willow twigs to ma
as it's resistance and adhesiveness great
.se' Between this third earth bank and the