3-047-121 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late storms in the Baltic: scene on the coast of Zealand, off Kjöge, 1872. Engraving from a sketch by Holger Drachmann. 'The marvellous feature in all the descriptions is the speed with which the waters came rushing onward. "Something white," as the country people express it, was seen in the distance; it came nearer with frightful velocity, and in a few minutes proved to be a high, foaming, roaring wave, 2 ft. or 3 ft. in height, followed by others still higher, in rapid succession, and changing the whole country, with its farms and cottages, its fields and meadows, orchards, and groves of trees, into a wild sea...The waves meeting from different sides, the higher grounds were converted into islands, the water carrying with it the fertile soil, and covering the fields with a layer of sand and gravel. Along the coasts of Sealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster, and the smaller islands the flood peeled from the land a belt of highly-cultivated earth, cutting here and there deep slices out of it. Some parishes suffered to the extent of half or two thirds of the whole tilled area...Some of the small islets scattered about in the Belts were entirely submerged, and the inhabitants drowned, their boats having been carried away by the storm'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.