The novel tells the story of Hauke Haien, allegedly related to the author by a schoolmaster in a small town in Northern Frisia. Hauke is the son of a farmer and licensed surveyor, and does his best to learn his father's trade. He even learns Dutch so he can read a Dutch print of Euclid's work on mathematics and geometry. Over time, he becomes very familiar with the dykes along the local coast, and begins to wonder if it would not be better to make them flatter on the sea side so as to reduce their windage during floods.
