Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1901 — Holland Keeps the Ocean at Bay. [ARTICLE]

Holland Keeps the Ocean at Bay.

There are at present about 1,000 miles of sea dikes in the Netherlands. The total length of dikes Is difficult to estimate, and even if it could be estimated would mean but little, for it must be remembered that the dikes have for the most part in the course of time been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly. It has not been so much a question of building them as It has been of maintaining them and keeping them where they were. Besides protecting the country from the invasions of both fresh and salt waters, the dikes have served to reclaim no less that 210,000 acres, nearly all of which are good, fertile land.