Living and Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee, Part I [pp. 150-156]

I50
A4PPILETO VS' JO URNAL.
LIVIATG AIVD DEAD CITIES OF TIHE ZUYDER ZEE.
T.
THE Zuyder Zee, or " South Sea," is a great in- The waters of the lagoon thus augmented began
dentation of the North Sea, setting southward slowly to rise, and a rise of a yard or two laid whole
into the coast of Holland. Its length from north to leagues of land under water. The shallow lagoon,
south is eighty miles; its greatest breadth from east in the course of generations, grew to a considerable
to wiest is about forty miles; near the middle it con- lake, which was named by the Romans Lake Fleto,
tracts to about ten miles. The area is about twen- along the shores of which considerable towns grew
ty-five hundred square miles-a little less than one- up, for the great migration from the northeast, with
third of that of Lake Erie. It is the only considerable the details of which we are still so imperfectly acbody of water which has taken the place of dry land quaintedl, was going on. For our present purpose it
within the brief geological period covered by human is sufficient to know that what is now Hollandhistory, and within a comparatively recent epoch "the Hollow Land"-was peopled by the Frisonswithin that period. The Zuyder Zee is a little less "Free People "-who, in their contests and allithan six centuries old. ances with the Romans, had come to be recog The Romans first pushed their arms into North- nized as the bravest and most warlike of all the
ern Germany about half a century before the birth Germanic tribes.
of our Saviour. The whole region which now con- While Lake Fleto was slowly eating its way into
AMSTERDAM.
stitutes the kingdom of Holland was a swampy forest almost on a level with the waters of the North
Sea, from which it was separated by shifting mounds
of sand heaped up by the wraves, where a scattered
population gained a scanty livelihood by hunting and
fishling. Near the centre was a shallow lagoon
which received the sluggish waters of the Yssel, the
Amstel, and othei small streams, discharging them
into the North Sea by an outlet which the natives
named the Vlie, which in Latinl became the river
Fletum. Just before the commencement of the
Christian era, the Roman general Drusus, surnamed Germanicus, to furthel his military operations, dug a canal by which the waters of one of the
arms of the Rhine were diverted into the Yssel.
the swampy forests of the Hollow Land from the
south, the fierce northern ocean was chafing against
the saind-banks which shut it out upon the north.
Time and again it broke over or burst through them,
causing fearful inundations. In I285 a long and
fierce northwest gale drove the waters against the
barrier, which gave way far a space of forty miles,
leaving only the four narrow islets which still exist.
Thus the fresh-water Lake Fleto with its bordering
swaml-)ps was permanently transformed into the salt
Zuyder Zee. In this last great inundation. it is said
that seventy-two considerable towns were swallowed
up, and one hundred thousand persons were drowned.
The shallow waters soon swarmed with herring and
other fish, and the towns built upon spots elevated