LOSS OF LAND IN THE NETHERLANDS. 
337 
of the dikes gradually sinks them into the soft soil beneath, 
and this loss of elevation must be compensated by raising the 
surface, while the increased burden thus added tends to sink 
them still lower. “Tetens declares,” says Kohl, “that in some 
places the dikes have gradually sunk to the depth of sixty or 
even a hundred feet.” * For these reasons, the processes of 
dike building have been almost everywhere again and again 
repeated, and thus the total expenditure of money and of labor 
upon the works in question is much greater than would appear 
from an estimate of the actual cost of diking-in a given extent 
of coast land and draining a given area of water surface.f 
On the other hand, by erosion of the coast line, the drifting 
of sand dunes into the interior, and the drowning of fens and 
morasses by incursions of the sea—all caused, or at least 
greatly aggravated, by human improvidence—the Netherlands 
have lost a far larger area of land since the commencement of 
the Christian era than they have gained by diking and drain¬ 
ing. Staring despairs of the possibility of calculating the loss 
from the first-mentioned two causes of destruction, but he esti- 
* Die Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthumer Schlesicig und Holstein , 
iii, p. 151. 
t The purely agricultural island of Pelworm, off the coast of Schleswig, 
containing about 10,000 acres, annually expends for the maintenance of its 
dikes not less than £6,000 sterling, or nearly $30,000.—J. G. Koijl, Inseln 
und Marschen Schleswig''s, und Holstein's , ii, p. 394. 
The original cost of the dikes of Pelworm is not stated. 
“ The greatest part of the province of Zeeland is protected by dikes 
measuring 250 miles in length, the maintenance of which costs, in ordinary 
years, more than a million guilders [above $400,000]. * * * The an¬ 
nual expenditure for dikes and hydraulic works in Holland is from five to 
seven million guilders” [$2,000,000 to $2,800,000].— Wild, Die Nieder- 
lande , i, p. 62. 
One is not sorry to learn that the Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands 
had some compensations. The great chain of ring dikes which surrounds 
a large part of Zeeland is due to the energy of Caspar de Robles, the 
Spanish governor of that province, who in 1570 ordered the construction 
of these works at the public expense, as a substitute for the private em¬ 
bankments which had previously partially served the same purpose.— Wild, 
Die Niederlande, i, p. 62. 
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