Note 598 — Chapter X · —Man's Relation To The Water

Though the North Sea lowland of Europe has suffered from the serious encroachment of the sea from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, when the Zuyder Zee, the Dollart and Jade Bay were formed, nevertheless the counter encroachment of the land upon the water, accomplished through the energy and intelligence of the inhabitants, has more than made good the loss. Between the Elbe and Scheldt more than 2,000 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) have been reclaimed from river and sea in the past three hundred years. Holland's success in draining her large inland waters, like the Haarlem Meer (70 square miles or 180 square kilometers) and the Lake of Ij, has inspired an attempt to recover 800 square miles (2,050 square kilometers) of fertile soil from the borders of the Zuyder Zee and reduce that basin to nearly one-third of its present size.598 One-fourth of the Netherlands lies below the average of high tides, and in 1844 necessitated 9,000 windmills to pump the waste water into the drainage canals.599