UNITING THE ISLANDS. 201 



works were carried on upon the marsches of the coast of 

 Holstein. 



But the grounds thus gained from the sand banks were 

 very insecure ; these people, though they had inhabited 

 them more than ten centuries, had not yet understood the 

 possibility of that combination of fatal circumstances 

 above described against which their dikes formed but a 

 very feeble rampart ; the North Sea, by the extraordinary 

 elevations of its level, being much mere formidable in 

 this respect than the ocean, where the changes of abso- 

 lute level are much less considerable. I shall give an 

 abridged account of the particulars extracted by M. Hartz 

 from the chronicle of Dankwerth, relative to the great 

 catastrophes which these marsches successively underwent, 

 previously to the time when experience led to the means 

 necessary for their security. 



In 1075, the island of Nord Strand, then contiguous to 

 the coast, particularly experienced the effect of that un- 

 usual combination of defective causes ; the sea passing 

 over its dike, and forming within it large excavations 

 like lakes. In 1114 and 1158, considerable parts of 

 Eyderstede were carried away ; and in 1204, the part 

 called Sudhever in the marsch of Utholm was destroyed. 

 All these catastrophes were fatal to many of the marsch 

 settlers ; but in 1216, the sea having risen so high that its 

 waves passed over Nord Strand, Eyderstede, and Dit- 

 marsch, near 10,000 of their inhabitants perished. 

 Again, in 1300, seven parishes in Nord Strand and Pell- 

 worm were destroyed; and in 1338, Ditmarsch expe- 

 rienced a new catastrophe, which swept away a great 

 part of it on the side next Eyderstede : the dike of the 

 course of the Eyder between the sand-banks was demo- 

 lished, and the tides have ever since preserved their 



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