BYDR4ULIC ENGINEERING.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 566, 2 September 1869, Page 4

BYDR4ULIC ENGINEERING.

Another grtsrt speelmen of hydraulic engineering is.' to be done, It appears, in Eumpo. The fajnuus song which eelebr&les the px>tstiona of Mynheer Van Dunk will have shortly to be altered. Qup singed have hitherto proclaimed that a " Dutchman's draught should be jis deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee," How shall this be sung or said when there is no Zuyder Zee \ when the rich clay which underlies its rolling waves shall be brought vmdei- the dominion of the harrow and the plough, and rolling corn-fields be »een where now the turbid 'waves of the great inland sea are tossing I Yet this is what is promised. The Dutch authorities have examined the question, and they, have decided not only that the Z^uyder Zee can be dried up, but that the woT?k can probably be accomplished in nine or ten years, certainly in fourteen. Herr Beijerihck, the inspector, has indeed reckoned that with steam-power he could drain the Zuyder gee dry in. twenty-one months. Tne ] a nd which underlies the waters of the Zee has been examined, no less than 134 barings having been made, Of these, 94 borings gave clay, 50 being a rich clay stratum of nearly* a ya.rd and three-quartera in depth, There was only pne sample of sour ground, whereas beneath the Lake of Haarlem there had been a large extent of .inferior s,oil. Yet the draining of Haarlem Mere was no unprofitable work, and it is estimated that even if the soil und.er the Zuyder Zee be on the average no better than that of the recovered land of Haarlem, the profit of the work Will exceed the cost by ten millions of pounds sterling, The part of the Zee to be drained contains jn round numbers 390,000 acres. Certainly the brave Hollanders have already shown mettle enough in thpir contests with the ocean to leave littlo doubt as to their capacity for making a winning battle of thin new venture. Of all nations t]be Putch are held to have shown th

com pletest mastery over the art of winning estates from the strong grasp of the ocean. In former times, when as yet they had not acquired the full skill in the arts of dyking and draining, they were oftener defeated than victorious, and in place of being able to reclaim the sea-lands, they failed in preventing the sea from making continual encroachments, The result of the contest, said Lyell, speaking of the former struggles of the Dutch, was in favor of the ocean ; "the area of the whole territory having become continually more and more circumscribed, natural and artificial barriers having given way one after another, and many hundred thousands beings having perished in the Weaves." Even now it is only over inland seas that the Dutch can safely seek for mastery. Outside the long series of islands stretching from the Texel to the mouths of the Weser and Elbe, the ocean is continually at its destructive work. Since the time of Pliny, these islands have lost nearly a third of theirnumber, fur he counted twenty-three, and there are now but sixteen. Our own Heligoland, which belongs to the sixteen, has been gradually consumed by the waves. Since the year 1770 a current navigable for large ships has been cut clean through it, separating the portion now called Sandy Island. All that the Datch can hope to do is to prevent the oceaji from forming inland seas or lakes ; or to reclaim lakes or inland aeas already formed. It has ever been held by M. Elie de Beaumont that in the long run the whole of Holland must vanish within the devouring maw of the ocean, since he believes that a process, much more serious than the mere washing or beating of the sea-waves is in progress, and can have but one result. The whole of this part of the continent of Europe, sayß he, in hi 3 " Geologic Pratique," is probably sinking, slowly but surely ; and, indeed, little doubt can exist that within recent times such a process has taken place, though we have no satisfactory evidence that it is still in progress. The peat mosses of fresh- water origin, which are now lying under the Zuyder Zee and Lake Flevo, serve to show that of old this part of Europe was much higher. In the days of Tacitus the present site of the Zuyder Zee was occupied by several lakes, and it is only by the subsidences of the whole region that we can account for the much wider range now covered by this celebrated sea.