People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — Holland’s Vast Undertaking. [ARTICLE]

Holland’s Vast Undertaking.

If the estimates which have been made of the cost of draining the Zuyder Zee in Holland and the value of the land which will be reclaimed are correct, it will be a profitable undertaking which has at last been begun after 600 years’ consideration. It was in the year 1282 that the sea flooded 1.000,000 acres and destroyed seventy-two villages inhabited by the Dutch. The dam which is to be built to shut out the North sea will extend from Makum, in Friesland, to the island of Wieringen, in north Holland. When it is finished the water will be pumped into the sea and the world will be allowed to look at the thh« teenth century villages, or what is left of them. It is said that three-fourths of the reclaimed land will be worth S4OO an acre, which will add $300,000,000 to the value of the agricultural territory of Holland. As the cost of building the dam and pumping out the water will be only $95,000,000, there will be a handsome profit in the enterprise. On this side of the ocean S4OO an acre seems to be a large price for farming land, but it may be worth that amount to the Hollanders. —Fire and Water. —Mrs. Hinton—“l have been reading a description of a magazine gun. Where do you suppose the inventor found the idea for firing it so rapidly?” Mr. Hinton—“l suppose from watching the magazine poet fired.”—lnter Ocean.