at
would first be filled would become a lake. The lake would be many miles
in extent, perhaps, but the water in it would not usually be very
deep--not more than eight or ten feet, perhaps; though in some cases
the polders are so low, that an inundation from the rivers and canals
around it would make the lake twenty or thirty feet deep.

"Of course, in ancient times, when a portion of the country became thus
submerged, it was for the people to consider whether they would abandon
it or try to pump all that water out again, by means of the wind mills.
They would think that if they pumped it out it would be some years
before the land would be good again; for the salt in the water would
tend to make it barren. So they would sometimes abandon it, and put all
their energy into requisition to strengthen the dikes around it, in
order to prevent the inundation from spreading any farther. For water,
in Holland, tends to spread and to destroy life and property, just as
fire does in other countries. The lakes and rivers, where they are
higher than the land, are liable to burst their barriers after heavy
rains falling in the country, or great floods coming down the rivers, or
high tides rise from the sea, and so run into each other; and the people
have continually to contend against this danger, just as in other
countries they do against spreading conflagrations.

"In the case of spreading fire, water is the great friend and helper of
man; and in the case of these spreading inundations of water, it is
wind that he relies upon. The only mode that the Dutch had to pump out
the water in former times was the wind mills. When the rains or the
tides inundated the land, they called upon the wind to help them lift
the water out to where it could flow away again.

"There was a time, two or three hundred years ago, when all the wind
mills that the people could make, seem not to have been enough to do the
work; and there was one place, in the centre of the country, where the
water continued to spread more and more--breaking through as it spread
from one polder to another--until, at last, it swallowed up such an
extent of country as to form a lake thirty miles in circumference. This
lake at last extended very near to the gates of Haarlem, and it was
called the Holland Lake. You will find it laid down on all the maps of
Holland, except those which have been printed within a few years. The
reason why it is not laid down now is, because a few yea