this great bay was so filled up with sand that it was expected the two islands would in a short time be reunited and thenceforth form but one.  Then, on a sudden, the gulf yawned anew.  That huge rent, the Veer Gat, opened once again, more deeply than before; whole towns were buried, and their inhabitants drowned.  Then the water retired, the earth rose, shaking off its humid winding sheet, and the old task was resumed; man began once more to dispute the soil with the invading waves.  A portion of the land, which seemed to have been forever lost, was regained; but at the cost of what determined strife, after how many battles, with what dire alternations!  Within a century, three entire polders on the north coast of Noordbeveland have again vanished, and in the place where they were there flows a stream forty yards deep.  In 1873, the polder of Borselen, thirty-one acres in extent, sank into the waters.  Each year the terrible val devours some space or other, carrying away the land in strips.  The Sophia polder is now attacked by the val.  Every possible means is being employed for its defence; no sacrifice is spared.  The game is almost up; already one dike has been swallowed, and a portion of the conquered ground has had to be abandoned.  The dams are being strengthened in the rear, while every effort is being made to fix the soil so as to prevent the slipping away of the reclaimed land.  To effect this, not only are the dams, reinforced and complicated by an inextricable network of stones and interlaced tree-branches; but Zinkstukken are sunk far off in the sea, which by squeezing down the shifting bottom avert those sudden displacements which bring about such disasters.  The Zinkstukken—­enormous constructions in wicker work—­are square rafts, made of reeds and boughs twisted together, sometimes two or three hundred feet long on a side.  They are made on the edge of the coast and pushed into the sea; and no sooner is one afloat than it is surrounded by a crowd of barges and boats, big and little, laden with stones and clods of earth.  The boats are then attached to the Zinkstuk, and this combined flotilla is so disposed along shore that the current carries it to the place where the Zinkstuk is to be sunk.  When the current begins to make itself felt, the raft is loaded by the simple process of heaping the contents of the barges upon the middle of it.  The men form in line from the four corners to the centre, and the loads of stone and earth are passed on to the centre of the raft, on which they are flung; then the middle of the Zinkstuk begins to sink gently, and to disappear under the water.  As it goes down, the operators withdraw; the stones and clods are then flung upon it from boats.  At this stage of the proceedings the Zinkstuk is so heavy that all the vessels, dragged by its weight, lean over, and their masts bend above it.  But now the decisive moment approaches, and the foreman, standing on the poop of the largest boat, in the middle of the flotilla, on the side furthest from the shore, awaits the instant when the Zinkstuk shall come into precisely the foreordained position.  At that instant he utters a shout and makes a signal; the ropes are cut, the raft plunges downward, and disappears forever, while the boats recover their proper position.”