CANAL BETWEEN NORTH SEA AND ZUIDERZEE. 619 
be found in political than in geographical or even commercial 
considerations, but it will not be without an important bear- 
ing on the material interests of all the countries to whose peoples 
it will furnish new facilities for communication and trafie. 
The North Holland canal between the Helder and the port 
of Amsterdam, a distance of fifty miles, executed a few years 
since at a cost of $5,000,000, and with dimensions admitting 
the passage of a frigate, was a magnificent enterprise, but it is 
thrown quite into the shade by the shorter channel now in pro- 
cess of construction for bringing that important city into al- 
most direct communication with the North Sea, and thus re- 
storing to it something at least of its ancient commercial im- 
portance. The work involves some of the heaviest hydraulic 
operations yet undertaken, including the construction of great 
dams, locks, dikes, embankments, and the execution of drain- 
ing works and deep cuttings under circumstances of extreme 
difficulty. In the course of these labors many novel problems 
have presented themselves for practical solution by the inge- 
nuity of modern engineers, and the new inventions and _ pro- 
cesses thus necessitated are valuable contributions to our means 
of physical improvement. 
Cape Cod Canal. 
The opening of a navigable cut through the narrow neck 
which separates the southern part of Cape Cod Bay in Massa- 
chusetts from the Atlantic, was long ago suggested, and there 
are few coast improvements on the Atlantic shores of the United 
States which are recommended by higher considerations of 
utility. It would save the most important coasting trade of 
the United States the long and dangerous navigation around 
Cape Cod, afford a new and safer entrance to Boston harbor 
for vessels from Southern ports, secure a choice of passages, 
thus permitting arrivals upon the coast and departures from it 
at periods when wind and weather might otherwise prevent 
them, aud furnish a most valuable internal communication in 
