424 DRAINING OF THE ZUIDERZEE. 
expediency.* The geographical results of this improvement 
would be analogous to those of the draining of the Lake of 
Haarlem, but many times multiplied in extent, and its meteor- 
ological effects, though perhaps not perceptible on the coast, 
could hardly fail to be appreciable in the interior of Holland. 
The bearing of the works [have noticed, and of others simi- 
lar in character, upon the social and moral, as well as the 
purely economical, interests of the people of the Netherlands, 
has induced me to describe them more in detail than the gene- 
ral purpose of this volume may be thought to justify; but if 
we consider them simply from a geographical point of view, 
we shall find that they are possessed of no small importance as 
modifications of the natural condition of terrestrial surface. 
There is good reason to believe that before the establishment of 
a partially civilized race upon the territory now occupied by 
Dutch, Frisic, and Low German communities, the grounds not 
exposed to inundation were overgrown with dense woods; that 
the lowlands between these forests and the sea-coasts were 
marshes, covered and partially solidified by a thick matting of 
peat-plants and shrubs interspersed with trees; and that even 
the sand-dunes of the shore were protected by a vegetable 
growth which, in a great measure, prevented the drifting and 
translocation of them. 
The present causes of river and coast erosion existed, in- 
deed, at the pericd in question; but some of them must have 
acted with less intensity, there were strong natural safeguards 
against the influence of marine and fresh-water currents, and 
the conflicting tendencies had arrived at a condition of approx- 
imate equilibrium, which permitted but slow and gradual 
* The plan at present most in favor is that which proposes the drainage of 
only a portion of the southern half of the Zuiderzee, which covers not far 
from 400,000 acres. The project for the construction of a ship-canal directly 
from Amsterdam to the North Sea, now in course of execution, embraces the 
drainage of the Ij, a nearly land-locked basin communicating with the Zui- 
derzee and covering more than 12,000 acres. See official reports on these 
projects in Droogmaking vom het zuidelijk gedeclte der Zuiderzee, te 8’ Gra- 
venhage, 1868, 4to, 
