Mohave County miner., 1916-10-21
HOLLAND ID ANNEX
 PROVINCE FROM ITS
 OLD ENEMY, THE SEA

THE HAGUE, NetherlandS, OcI. |.
 -Peaceable, unaggressive Holland,
 has caught the annexation fever. It
 proposes to annex a twelfth province
 from it's old enemy, the sea-
 It proposes to entrust it's clever
 army of hydrographic engineers with
 the task of building the waters of the
 Zuyder Zee, snatching 529,5 acres of agricultural land from it's embrace,
 and converting the remaining 362,500
 acres into a freshwater lake. For the present, the scheme just embodied in a
 government Bill is restricted to the reclamation of some 133, ,050 acres, and
 is estimated to cost a total sum of S44, 100000, whereas the estimate for the complete reclamation scheme is 8S,800,0OO. It is computed that even the restricted scheme will require fifteen years.
 In its main outlines the project, which has been evolving ever since the year 1849, is a simple one. The Zuyder Zee is a large, shallow arm of the North Sea that breaks into the northern part of the Netherlands in a southeasterly direction and laps the shores of five provinces, widening out into a big circular basin. Across its mouth lies a string of islands which, before the great floods, once formed the coastline and the limits of the seas domain. Some little distance in side this line a massive dike is to be constructed in nine years time, from shore to shore, right across the en- trance to the blight. Starting few miles below the well-known naval base of Den Fielder, on the coast of the province of North Holland, it will cross the narrow strait of the Amsteldiep to the island of Wierin- gen, thence going straight through the sea north-eastwards to a spot near Piaam, on the Frisian coast. The entire dike, including the inter vening small island, will be 25 miles in length, as compared with the 200 miles of coastline that it supplants.
 Out of the lake thus formed, it is proposed to construct four separate "polders" or drained basins, though | only the two smaller ones, the north western and southwestern, located | above Amsterdam, are actually in- cluded in the bill laid before Parlia- i ment. The later northeastern and | southeastern polders will be situated | on either side of the channel through | which the River Yssel will reach the newly-formed "Yssel Lake" and their reclamation will probably take an- other 15 years or so beyond the time stated. This island lake will also re- ceive the outflow of the other rivers and waterways at present emptying | into this portion of the Zuyder Zee. It | will form a basin so low that even | when the spring tide is beating | against the northern outer dike, these inland waters can flow into it and | without prejudice or danger, remain there for a few days when it is not | possible to discharge immediately | through sluices into the sea.
 Among the various problems arising | is provision for the needs of shipping. | A broad channel of the lake will still | run up to the port of Amsterdam, and | in order to preserve communication between the two severed parts of the Zuyder Zee locks are to be built on the island of Wieringen, while a canal running along the inner side of the Frisian sea dike and issuing south of the enclosing barrier will meet the needs of shipping between Harlingen, Terschelling and Vlieland and the en- closed part of the Zuyder Zee. The harbors falling within the latter area will have to be deepened, while pro N4AAo4OAA To AllcluC lOl all 4lluGllllllIN O4 S2,4O0,OOO to the Zuyder Zee fisher men for the damage inflicted on their interests by the conversion of the present open sea into a fresh water lake of less than half the size.
 The great question is: can this great project be made remunerative one? In the opinion of the government and its advisers it can. To set against the total expenditure for the whole scheme of SSS,OOO,OOO, in the first place there will be the enormous bene- fits and saving of money which it will mean to the entire water protection and drainage systems of the surround ing provinces. The coastline to be de- tended from the inroads of the sea will be shortened by some 180 miles,
 and in place of an arm of the North
 Sea in the center O., the country, with
 its sharply changing water conditions,