862 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



does not appear to be rich. In some places it is little bet- 

 ter than sand, tinged with alluvion-earth. In other situa- 

 tions, muddy or sludgy deposits have accumulated over the 

 sand, so as to form a layer of loamy or clayey soil, but not 

 of a very kindly character. — To a stranger the dikes, the 

 drains, and the water-mills, form very striking features of 

 the country. Metelerkamp remarks, that Holland was de- 

 fended with dikes some ages too soon ; which is, in other 

 words, to say, that in the progress of time the tendency 

 to attci'lssemcnt or silttng-up (so well illustrated by Mr 

 Stevenson, civil engineer, in the 2d volume of the Wer- 

 ncrian Memoirs) has here, as elsewhere, operated invaria- 

 bly. In former ages, the Rhine, at its embouchure, spread 

 over a great surface of country, and the clay suspended in 

 the waters was slowly and equally deposited over the whole. 

 At the present day, this deposit must take place chiefly in the 

 flat part of the alveus of the river itself, and in the bottom of 

 the lakes and canals in which it is lost. The progress of this 

 silting up is universally acknowledged in Holland: in some 

 places, the bottom of the river or of the canal is ascertained 

 to be already considerably higher than the meadows or corn- 

 fields on each side. This unnatural condition cannot well 

 endure for another age. The principal Dutch engineers, 

 we understand, have projected a general reform in the iva- 

 hr.stadt, on liberal and enlightened principles. Instead of 

 allowing, as at present, rich individuals and monied com- 

 panies to heighten at pleasure the embankments for defence 

 of their private properties, it has been proposed to open 

 a i'wv course to Vm ocean in the lowest parts of the coun- 

 try, by having regard only to the natural course of the out- 

 let . 1)\ keeping down all private dikes there, and by rai- 

 ding very considerably the grand embankments. In the 

 ition of this project, much temporary inconvenience 



