CHAPTEE II. 



IIYDEOGKAPHY.-CLIMATE. 



I HE salineness of some of the bogs near the coast is one of many facts 



which prove that the lowlands of Holland were at one time 

 flooded by the sea ; whilst borings and excavations made at 

 various places give us some very definite ideas as to the history of 

 the struggle between land and water that has been going on for 

 ages. When the docks at Amsterdam were excavated ancient beaches were 

 laid bare far below the present level of the land, and the fossils of living species 

 of molluscs were found miugled with the remains of stranded whales. At 

 Utrecht, 35 miles from the sea, the borer, between 440 and 538 feet, pierced 

 strata containing shells of living salt-water molluscs. Then came a layer in 

 which fresh-water molluscs were mixed with marine species, and lower still, beyond 

 719 feet, a stratum was reached in which existing species were mingled with fossil 

 ones. This leads M. Hartini? to conclude that the soil of Holland has suffered a 

 subsidence of 555 feet. 



Were nature allowed full' sway in these lowlands, the Avater would once more 

 usurp dominion, and much of what is now dry land would be converted into 

 liquid mud. No doubt the ocean sets itself limits by throwing up dunes along 

 the coast, but behind these dunes the pent-up rivers would spread over the 

 country, were they not kept within bounds through the interference of man. 

 So flat is the country at the back of the dunes that a traveller sees the wind- 

 mills and homesteads gradually rise above the horizon like islands on the open 

 ocean. 



The Rhine — Rhenus hicornis — divided into two arms when fii'st seen by the 

 ancients, and does so still. The Helius, or Waal, then, as now, entered a wide 

 gulf of the sea, whilst the northern and less voluminous branch retained the name of 

 Rhine as far as its mouth in the North Sea. The Yssel separates from the Rhine 

 above Arnhem. The Old Yssel joins it on the right, after which it takes its 

 winding course to the Zuider Zee, known as FIcro to the ancients. It is 

 supposed by some that the Yssel was not originally an arm of the Rhine, but 

 that Drusus first connected the two rivers by cutting a canal across the lowland 



