GENERAL FEATUEES, ETC. 



883 



barrier has been mucli weakened in tbe course of tbe last thousand years. In 

 many places it has been broken through by the sea, and the floods compelled 

 the Flemings on the sea-coast to abandon their homes, and to seek an asylum in 

 neighbouring countries, where they fovmded numerous colonies. Scarphout was 

 one of the towns destroyed by the great flood of 1334 ; but Blankenberghe, 

 which has been built upon its site, has no dunes near it now, though it is to them 

 it owes its name. Quite recentl}^ in 1877, a considerable jjortion of the sand- 

 hills between Ostend and Mariakerke was washed away during a storm. Formerly 

 the dunes, when assaulted by the sea, were able to invade the swamps at their 

 back ; but for hundreds of years they have been prevented from doing so, and 

 man has vigorously defended his hard- won fields. Thus taken simultaneously 

 in front and rear as it were, the dunes have grown more slender with every 



Fig. 216. — Pkofile of Belgium fkom the North-west to the South-east. 

 Horizontal Scale 1 : 2,300,000. Vertical Scale 1 : 23,000. 



25 Miles. 



The conlinuous line begins at Ostend, cresses the Sambre between Charleroi and Namur, the Meu?e to the 

 north of Dinant, and terminates at St. Hubert. 



The dotted line begins at Ostend, passes through Ghent, crosses the Senne to the north of Brassels, the Meuse at 

 Liège (200 feet), and terminates at the Baraque-Michel in the Ardennes {-3,2(30 feet). 



generation, and to protect the fields which they formerly defended, costly dykes 

 had to be constructed. Would it not be wiser to preserve the dunes, and to 

 consolidate them by planting them with reeds and aspen-trees ? 



E I VERS. 



Belgium cannot claim a single river from its source to its mouth into the 

 sea, and two rivers rising within its frontiers take their course into foreign lands. 

 One of these is the Oise, which rises near Chiraay, and flows to the French 

 Seine ; the other is the Sure, or Sauer, which is born in the gorges of the 

 Ardennes, winds through the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, and is finally swal- 

 lowed up by the German Moselle. The Meuse, Maes, or Maas, and the Schelde, 



