DELFT.
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more clayey texture, what is brought up is placed in an enclosure by the side of the canal, till it becomes dry by exposure to the air; it is then mixed with sand, and made into the small bricks or clinkers which have already been often noticed.
It may be presumed that, in the alluvial countries of Holland, no stone quarries are to be found. The Meuse, however, conveys most valuable stone from the vicinity of Liege and Maestricht; one species is an excellent granite or porphyry, and another, well calculated for burning to lime, though the greater part of the lime which is used in this district is made from sea shells.
The most diligent inquiry will scarcely enable one to give any thing like an average estimate of the value of land_in an extensive district; and a stranger, spending but a few days in each place, must feel diffident, and ought to apprize his readers of that diffidence, before he presumes to gencralizé on such a subject. The common measure of land in Holland, the morgen, is about one-third more than the English acre; the guilder may be estimated at two shillings. The highest price that meadow land bears in any part where I inquired, was eight hundred guilders the morgen, or about fifty-four pounds the acre; such land was considered capable of supporting two cows to the morgen, the value of the keep of them was estimated at thirty guilders, or three pounds each annually. Such land, if let, would produce a rent of thirty- three to thirty-six guilders, the landlord paying the land-tax of twenty-five percent, and the tenant the taxes collected for draining, embankments, roads, and other local purposes, which amounted to from four to five guilders annually. The value of land in this rich district, besides those local cireumstances which every where influence it, must depend much on its capa-


