A hurricane having thrown up the sand before the mouth of the river in the year 839, thus causing its flow into the ocean to be blocked, its backed-up waters created a swamp which all but covered the entire territory known as Rynland, and which, in the subsequent diversion of the river’s course, was largely responsible for the formation of the vast delta in the south. In 1807 the Dutch conceived the project of draining this swamp and making _polders_ of it by pumping its water into especially constructed canals. Later they relieved the congestion of sand at the old Rhine’s mouth and built a series of flood gates across it. By closing these gates at high tide they were enabled to exclude the inrush of water from the ocean, and by opening them again at low tide, they permitted the accumulated waters of the river to flow out into the ocean at the rate of 50,000 cubic feet per minute. Thus was the Haarlemerpolder, seventy-two square miles in extent, reclaimed from what used to be the Haarlemermeer. The tram line from Leyden to Katwyk passes first through the village of Endegeest, the home and workshop of Descartes for a number of years, and then through Rynsburg, the former residence of that grandfather of modern philosophy, Spinoza, born of Jewish parents in Amsterdam in 1632. The little places are so shady, so peaceful, so still, that anyone having been brought up within their solitudes might very naturally develop the pastime of philosophizing without half trying. The latter part of April or the first part of May is the proper time of year to visit Haarlem and its vicinity. Then the tulips, crocuses, lilies, and hyacinths are in the halcyon days of their bloom, swaying languidly to and fro in the gentle breeze and diffusing a delicious perfume that is wafted over the country for miles. Fields and fields of them there are--a sweetly scented “crazy quilt” of superlative sheen and luster; for Haarlem, the greatest flower garden in the world, exports bulbs of all varieties to every civilized country. Whether the Dutch or the Portuguese became the first European tulip fanciers is a moot question. The flower originally came from the East, its name being derived from the Persian _toliban_, or turban. Suffice it to say that by 1636 bulb culture in general and tulip culture in particular had developed into a veritable mania in and about Haarlem. Bulbs became then as much an item of speculation as shares of mining stock are at the present day--and just as uncertain. Fortunes were made and lost in the open market. Generally speaking, everybody in Haarlem, whether or not he professed to be anything of a floriculturist, dickered through the brokers in bulbs. One speculator in Amsterdam netted almost $35,000 in four months. Prices went up steadily until, at the height of the boom, the bulb of a “Viceroy” brought $2,000, an “Admiral Liefkens” slightly more, and a “Semper Augustus” was sold for $6,000.