204 ON ALLUVIAL FORMATIONS. 



Strand were united with each other by means of eight 

 hoogs ; and the sandy marsches of which I have spoken, 

 contiguous to the geest, on the north of that of Husum, 

 were enclosed with dikes. 



After the dikes had been thus elevated, and their sur- 

 face rendered firm by the straw ropes, though the latter 

 were not yet properly fixed, the inhabitants of the marsches 

 for some time enjoyed repose ; but on the 1 1th October, 

 1634, the sea, rising to an excessive height, carried away, 

 during the great tempest, the hoogs which had produced 

 the junction between Pellworm and Nord Strand, these 

 having ever since continued distinct islands ; it also vio- 

 lently attacked Ditmarsch ; and its ravages extended over 

 the whole coast, as far as the very extensive new lands of 

 Jutland. Prince* then came forward zealously to the re- 

 lief of their subjects. In particular, Frederic III., Duke 

 of Sleswigh, seeing that the inhabitants of Nord Strand 

 were deficient both in the talents and in the means ne- 

 cessary for the reparation and future security of that large 

 island, and knowing that the art of dikes had made greater 

 progress in Holland, because of the opulence of the 

 country, addressed himself to the States General, request- 

 ing them to send him an engineer of dikes with workmen 

 accustomed to repair them ; and this was granted. The 

 dikes of Nord Strand were then repaired in the most solid 

 manner ; and the Dutch engineer, seeing the fertility of 

 its soil, advised his sons upon his death-bed, to purchase 

 lands and settle there, if the duke would grant them the 

 free exercise of their religion ; they being Jansenist ca- 

 tholics, and the inhabitants of the island Lutherans.. The 

 duke agreed to this, on condition that they and their pos- 

 terity should continue to superintend the works carried 

 on upon the dikes ; to which they engaged themselves. 

 From that time the art of dikes, and particularly that part 



