EXTENSION OF DIKES. 
343 
The water slopes of river dikes are protected by plantations of 
willows or strong semi-aquatic shrubs or grasses, but as these 
will not grow upon banks exposed to salt water, sea dikes 
must be faced with stone, fascines, or some other revetement .* 
Upon the coast of Schleswig and Holstein, where the people 
have less capital at their command, they defend their embank¬ 
ments against ice and the waves by a coating of twisted straw 
or reeds, which must be renewed as often as once, sometimes 
twice a year. The inhabitants of these coasts call the chain of 
dikes u the golden border,” a name it well deserves, whether 
we suppose it to refer to its enormous cost, or, as is more 
probable, to its immense value as a protection to their fields 
and their firesides. 
When outlying flats are enclosed by building new embank¬ 
ments, the old interior dikes are suffered to remain, both as an 
additional security against the waves, and because the removal 
of them would be expensive. They serve, also, as roads, or 
causeways, a purpose for which the embankments nearest the 
sea are seldom employed, because the whole structure might 
be endangered from the breaking of the turf by wheels and 
the hoofs of horses. Where successive rows of dikes have been 
* The dikes are sometimes founded upon piles, and sometimes protected 
by one or more rows of piles driven deeply down into the bed of the sea 
in front of them. u Triple rows of piles of Scandinavian pine,” says Wild, 
“ have been driven down along the coast of Friesland, where there are no 
dune3, for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. The piles are bound 
together by strong cross timbers and iron clamps, and the interstices filled 
with stones. The ground adjacent to the piling is secured with fascines, 
and at exposed points heavy blocks of stone are heaped up as an additional 
protection. The earth dike is built behind the mighty bulwark of this 
breakwater, and its foot also is fortified with stones.” * * * “ The 
great Helder dike is about five miles long and forty feet wide at the top, 
along which runs a good road. It slopes down two hundred feet into the 
sea, at an angle of forty degrees. The highest waves do not reach the 
summit, the lowest always cover its base. At certain distances, immense 
buttresses, of a height and width proportioned to those of the dike, and 
even more strongly built, run several hundred feet out into the rolling sea. 
This gigantic artificial coast is entirely composed of Norwegian granite.”—• 
Wild, Die Niederlande , i, pp. 61, 62. 
