BELIEF.] HOLLAND 61 population is engaged in the fisheries rather than in trade, especially when the neighbourhood of a great town (as Alkmaar for Egmond, Haarlem for Zandvoort, Leyden for Katwijk, the Hague tor Scheveningen) secures a good market or a ready means of exportation. Many fishing villages on the west coast, e.g., Scheveningen, Domburg, and Zandvoort, have in recent years acquired repute as watering-places with both natives and foreigners. The availability of the fl.it coasts for trade and naviga tion is to a large extent dependent on the range of the rise and fall of the tides. As shown in the following table, this ste idily decreases from south-west to north-east. In the Z-.iyder Zee it is naturally very small. Places. KanRe of Tides. Places. Range "f Tides. Off Sluis Feet. 11-9 Petten Feet. 5-1 12 1 Kijkduin 4 1 Westkapelle 11 -2 Nieuwediep 3 7 Broil wtTshavcn 98 Terschelling 5 2 5 9 Ameland 6-4 5 7 Rottum 7 6 Briel 4 9 Amsterdam 1 1-2 Coast of Deltland 57 Zwanenburg 1 1-1 Katwijk . 5-5 Spaarndam 1 1-2 The Shallows (Wadden) of the German Ocean between Groninsen and Friesland and the islands Rottum, Schier- monnikoog, and Ameland are usually left in great measure dry at ebb-tide. The elevation of the surface of the country ranges from Relief. about 650 ft. above to 16 or 20 ft. below the Amsterdam zero, which marks the mean high-water level in the Y in front of the city. The circumstance that so much of it is below the sea-level necessarily exercises a very important influence on the drainage, the climate, and the sanitary condition of the country, as well as on its defence by means of inundation. From the history of the formation of the soil already given, and from the course of the rivers, it may be gathered that the low grounds are in the west, and the higher in the south and east. According to the relief map published by the minister of war (scale 1 : 600,000), the provinces of North and South Holland, the western portion of Utrecht as far as the Vaart Ehine, Zealand, except the southern part of Zealand-Flanders, and also the north-west corner of North Brabant, all lie, with the exception of the dunes, below the Amsterdam zero ; while the eastern portion of the country, except a small strip along the Zuyder Zee in the provinces of Guelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland, as well as the lands in the neighbourhood of the Dollart, is situated above it. The regular slope of the ground from south-east to north west, and the position of the highest and the lowest points, are indicated by the same authority. At Vaals, in the extreme south-east, the altitude is 656 ft, at Valkenberg 525, at St Pietersberg near Maestricht Relief and Geological Charts of Holland. The positions of the chief towns are indicated by the initials of their names. In the left-hand chart the undivided horizontal lines show the tracts that lie below the Amsterdam zero, the broken horizontal lines those under 1 metre, &c. 403, at the Tmbosch near Dieren and the Hettenheuvel near Heerenberg respectively 360 and 345, at Meerwijk near Nimeguen 318, at Apeldoorn 233, at Zeist 164, at Oldenzaal 154, at Wageningschenberg and Grebsohenberg respectively 151 and 131, at Hoenderloo and Kootwijk 1 Before the construction of the canal to Ymuiden. in the Veluwe 118 and 98, at Groenlo 78, in the "high fens " of Drenthe near Barge 85, at Lochen and Almelo 39, at Coevorden 31, at Steenwijk and Boertange 19, at Groningen 18, at Heerenveen 65. Below the Amsterdam zero lie naturally many impoldered districts, especially the marshes and meres which have been drained dry, as for
example the Schermer and Purmer polders and the
