The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-01-28

the southern part of the Zee a vast
lake, with the polders or reclaimed
lands in four great blocks about it,
There will be a passage through the
dam by locks to Amsterdam, but that
city already has a short cut to the
ocean at Ymuiden by the North sea-
This canal was completed &c years
ago, when it. was large enough and
deep enough to admit the biggest
ships of the ocean. 1t is now far too
small and only second-elass steam
ers can pass through it. The canal
is to be widened and deepened, and a
new lock 300 feet longer than our
biggest at Panama is to be built. Now
the great ocean liners which come
into Holland make Rotterdam their
port of call When the North sea
canal has these improvements, Am
sterdam shipping will revive, and the
port will contend with Antwerp and
Hamburg for transatlantic and other
oceanic trade.
The Dykes of Holland
All of my life l have been read
ing about the wonderful dykes of the
Dutch. AS a sehoolbey / cried over
the oft-quoted story of the little lad
who, when hole broke in the sea-
wall. thrust in his fist half up to the
elbow and stayed there all night.
keeping out the great ocean and thus
saving his country until the people
woke up and repaired the damage.
This is one of the many misleading
fairy stories on which much of our
education is based. 1t did not come
from the Dutch.
The dykes are not built in that
way. Most of those along the ocean
are sloping walls of stone brought in
ships from other lands and dumped
into the sea. or laid up carefully like
the wall of a house, only sloping.
Other dykes are of concrete, and
others of stone banked with earth
enclosed in a net work of willows
which take the place of iron in rein
forced concrete. In some places great
beds of woven basket work are
stretched along the sides of rivers
and canals to hold in the land and
mats of willows are sunk on the
sides of the waterways to be filled
in with the silt. in the same way as
In the jetties that border the pas
sage from the Gulf of Mexico to New
Orleans. In fact, l venture Captain
Eads planned the Improvement of the
Mississippi after studying these
works of the Dutch.
The dykes run not only along the
sea, but also along the rivers and
canals and around the polders. The
DtQS VI LHC al Q wien hi5h
over the land on each side of them,
so that the people live, as it were in
sunken gardens with streams of
water flowing along on embank-
ments above the tops of their houses.
by Canal, belgium to Rotterdam
Not long ago l came from Antwerp
to Rotterdam by boat to learn some
thing about the canals of this coun-
try, and since then I have gone
through many of the interior wal err
ways. Holland has more canals
than any region 1 know except the
Yangtse-K iang valley about Chang
hal, Hangchow and Soochow in
China There are enough canals
here to make a navigable stream
from New York to Denver, and other
waterways sufficient to extend it
three thousand miles farther This
includes the mouths of the Mas. the
Scheldt and the Rhine, and also the
Zuider Zee and other places where
the Atlantic Ocean runs into the
land.
On my way from Antwerp to Hol-
land we steamed across the Belgian
boundary through the province OF
iceland at the southwestern end OF
the country. Most of the land there
is below the sea level, walled in by
dykes against the waves of the
ocean. 1t is composed of nine islands
all protected by great embankments.
A part of our way was on the river
Scheldt. AS we approached the
Dutch frontier the river was walled
with stone held between piles. We
were high above the rest of the coun-
try and roofs of the barns and
houses were even with the top OF
the dykes. There were stork's nest
ing on, some of the roofs or standing
on one leg on the chimneys On the
other side of the river the top
branches of the tallest trees showed
out like bushes even with the banks,
and at times we could look down
into the fields under the walls and
see the cattle feeding upon them.
Every field had it's little waterway
around it, separating 1t from the 9th
ers, and the long line of trees mark
ing the roads made me think of Biz
nam Wood coming to Dunsinane as
described in Macbeth.
Leaving the Scheldt we came to
the locks leading into the great canal
of South Beveland. Many of the old
locks are still operated by hand by
quaint Dutchmen in caps, round
abouts, and fat pantaloons, and at
every stop picturesque Dutch girls
bring out fruit and knicknacks to
sell to passengers The girls wear