No. 4.] HOLLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. 77 



essential dependence upon the marked fertility of the soil, — 

 a quality which it attained through the action of the streams, 

 brincrino; a larsre amount of oro^anic material. 



When rivers overflow and deposit the sediments which 

 they have brought, they often build the surface which lies 

 immediately along the edge of the stream to a somewhat 

 higher level than the surfaces which are farther away from 

 the channel. For a time these natural embankments may 

 serve to keep the current of the river in place, but when 

 floods occur the rivers often burst through these and widely 

 inundate the surrounding country. Thus it was with these 

 rivers in Holland, for, while they were the agents in the 

 production of the land, they also at times became the cause 

 of inundating and sometimes of destroying considerable areas 

 which had been brought under cultivation. It was there- 

 fore quite natural that the Hollanders should regard these 

 streams as their natural enemies, attacking their farms and 

 homes from the south and the south-east. It also appears 

 that they took possession of the country before nature had 

 half completed it, and in their struggle and conquest they 

 have finished off* the work to their own likino;. The conse- 

 quence of this is, that the visitor to Holland sees as many 

 geographical features which are artificial as those which are 

 natural. 



But they likewise had another and a more stubborn enemy 

 in the North Sea, which was attacking their territory from 

 the west and the north-west. In this sea, with its frequent 

 storms and conflicting tides, they found an enemy on the 

 Netherland shores which was rarely quiet. At one time the 

 lands had been built out, as I have described, beyond their 

 present limits. Some portions which are now islands along 

 the shore were then part of the mainland, and where there 

 are now interior waters there were in many instances con- 

 tinuous lands. 



During a great storm in the early part of the thirteenth 

 century the waters were cast upon one part of the northern 

 shore with so much force that they broke through and washed 

 out so much of the loose land that the Gulf of the Dollart 

 was formed in the north-eastern part of the country. Some- 

 what later another storm of great violence piled the waters 



