ENGINEERING 579 



preliminary examination of the subject, reported the conclu- 

 sion that the drainage of the entire Zuyder-Zee was both 

 technically and financially impracticable, but that that por- 

 tion lying south of the Issel Delta offered no insurmountable 

 technical obstacles, and was financially feasible. He pro- 

 posed, accordingly, the draining and reclamation of a district 

 lying south of a dike to be built from a point on the eastern 

 extremity of the North Holland coast-line at Enckhuysen, 

 across the island of Urk to the Haatlander Canal on the 

 Overyssel coast, and the promotion of landing facilities north 

 of the dike. The district thus bounded by the projected dike 

 and the dam of Schneelingwolde, near Amsterdam, would 

 comprise (without the island of Marken) an area of 195,000 

 hectares (one hectare 2.471 acres), or, allowing for dikes, 

 ditches, canals, and roadways about 19,000 hectares, an area 

 of 176,000 hectares that is, a district ten times greater than 

 that of the Haarlem Sea would be reclaimed, and the area of 

 the kingdom of Holland would be increased by about one 

 eighteenth. It is understood that the government of the 

 kingdom has granted to the company above named a con- 

 cession to execute the work in question, which company has 

 decided upon the general plan of Beijerinck, modified, how- 

 ever, in certain details to meet certain objections raised by 

 the adjacent provinces of Friesland, Overyssel, Gelderland, 

 Utrecht, and North Holland. The cost of this great under- 

 taking is computed by an official commission at 123,500,000 

 Dutch guilders (149,400,000), and the time requisite for its 

 completion sixteen years. The completion afthe dike, which 

 is the most important feature of the work, will require, ac- 

 cording to estimate, eight years ; and the pumping-out, one 

 and three-quarter years. 



The advantages that are expected to be gained by the exe- 

 cution of this work are the direct enrichment of the country 

 by the addition of an extensive and fruitful territory, in 

 which the speedy growth of cities, towns, and villages would 

 increase the industry and commerce of the adjacent prov- 

 inces; the material improvement of the commercial high- 

 ways to Amsterdam ; a desirable perfecting of the net-work 

 of railways, and an incidental improvement in the discharge 

 of existing water-ways. 



