200 ON ALLUVIAL FORMATIONS. 



the coast in a continuous soil. The rare events, pro- 

 ductive of great catastrophes, do not carryback these 

 materials towards the bottom of the sea ; they only, as it 

 has been said before, ravage the surface, diminishing the 

 heights, and destroying the effect of vegetation. These 

 then were the effects, against which it was necessary to 

 guard. 



I now come to the plan of uniting the islands formed 

 by these early inhabitants. They availed themselves for 

 that purpose of all such parts of the sand-banks as lay in 

 the intervals between the large islands, and were begin- 

 ning to produce grass. These, when surrounded with 

 dikes, are what are called Hoogs ; and their effects are to 

 break the waves, thus diminishing their action against the 

 dikes of the large islands, and at the same time to deter- 

 mine the accumulation of the mud in the intervals be- 

 tween those islands. In this manner a large marsch island, 

 named Everschop, was already, in 987, united to Eyder- 

 stede by the point on which Poppenbull is situated ; and in 

 995, the union of the same marsches was effected by another 

 point, namely that of Tetenbull. Lastly, in the year 

 1000, Eyderstede received a new increase by the course 

 of the Hever, prolonged between the sand-banks, being 

 fixed by a dike ; but the whole still remained an island. 

 This is an example, of the manner in which the marsch 

 islands were united by the hoogs ; and the chronicle of 

 the country says, that by these labours the islands were 

 so considerably enlarged in size, and the intervals be- 

 tween them so much raised, that at low water it was pos- 

 sible to pass on foot from one to the other. The extent 

 of these marsches was so great on the coast of Sleswigh 

 alone, that they were divided into three provinces, two 

 of which comprehended the islands, and the third com- 

 prised the marsches contiguous to the coast ; and the same 



