Scheldt

skelt, a river of western Europe. It rises in northeastern France and flows through Belgium and the Netherlands into the North Sea. Its mouth is directly opposite that of the Thames. At Ghent it is navigable for boats of considerable size. By the time it reaches Antwerp, it is 45 feet deep and 1,600 feet wide. It here forms a capacious harbor. In his Traveler, Goldsmith speaks of the river as the "lazy Scheldt," an epithet applied fittingly, for the river crawls slowly to the sea through a fertile region of gardens and meadows intersected by canals.