a 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]

The Netherlands, with all its external features of man's war against the
water, has its smaller counterpart in the 1,200 square miles of
reclaimed soil about the head of the Wash, which constitute the Fenland
of England. Here too are successive lines of sea-wall, the earliest of
them attributed to the Romans, straightened and embanked rivers,
drainage canals, windmills and steam pumps, dikes serving as roads,
lines of willows and low moist pastures dotted with grazing cattle. No
feature of the Netherlands is omitted. The low southern part of
Lincolnshire is even called Holland, and Dutch prisoners from a naval
battle of 1652 were employed there on the work of reclamation, which was
begun on a large scale about this time.[600] In the medieval period, the
increase of population necessitated measures to improve the drainage and
extend the acreage; but there was little co-operation among the land
owners, and the maintenance of river dikes and sea-walls was neglected,
till a succession of disasters from flooding streams and invading tides
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries led to severe measures
against defaulters. One culprit was placed alive in a breach which his
own neglect or criminal cutting had caused, and was built in, by way of
educating the Fenlanders to a sense of common responsibility.[601]

The fight against the water on the coast begins later than that against
rivers and swamps in the interior of the land; it demands greater
enterprise and courage, because it combats two enemies instead o