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AMSTERDAM 155 AMUNDSEN AMSTERDAM, a city of Montgomery CO., N. Y.; on the Mohawk river and the New York Central and Hudson river and the West Shore railroads; 33 miles N. W. of Albany. It is an agricultural re- gion, but is noted for its manufactures, especially of knit goods, carpets, steel springs, and paper, Pop. (1910) 31,267; (1920) 33,524. AMSTERDAM, UNIVERSITY OF, an institution for higher learning in the city of Amsterdam, Holland, founded in 1632. It was reorganized in 1867 and ten years later was made the Royal Uni- versity. It has faculties of law, medi- cine, mathematics, science, arts, and theology, and about 1,100 students. AMULET, anything hung around the neck, placed like a bracelet on the wrist, or otherwise attached to the person, as an imagined preservative against sick- ness, witchcraft, or other evils, amulets were common in the ancient world, and they are so yet in nations where igno- rance prevails. AMUNDSEN, ROALD, a polar ex- plorer, born at Borge, Norway, July 16, 1872. He studied medicine for two years in the University of Christiania. The CAPTAIN ROALD AMUNDSEN call of the sea, however, made itself felt, and he became a member of the Nor- wegian navy. His first seagoing expe- rience dates from 1893. Four years later he was made first officer of one of the vessels of the South Polar expedition. This cruise covered the period 1897-1899, and determined his future career. In 1903 he undertook an expedition in a small vessel, the "Gjoa," with the design of relocating the magnetic North Pole. For more than a year and a half he sur- veyed an extensive district in the regions about the Pole, and gathered data which proved invaluable to him in his subse- quent work. He was the first man to thread the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On Aug. 13, 1905, he reached Herschel Island. His desire to discover the Pole remained unabated, and he was planning an expedition with this in view, when Peary's discovery of the Pole was announced to the world. There remained, however, the field of Antarctic exploration, and he determined if possible to rival Peary's discovery by reaching the South Pole, When he started out, it was generally believed that he was aiming for the Arctic, and it -was only when his vessel reached Ma- deira that he disclosed the real goal of his expedition. He reached the Bay of Whales on Jan. 14, 1911. Nearly a year was spent at this base, before he was ready to make the final dash for the South Pole. When at last his prepara- tions were completed in October, 1911, he took four companions and started for the Pole, which he reached Dec. 16, 1911. Had he waited a month longer, the lau- I'els of the discovery would have fallen to his English competitor. Captain Scott. While Amundsen was favored by weather conditions, this detracted no whit from the greatness of his achievement, which called into play all his native qualities of daring and persistence. The story of his adventures was told in lectures after his return, and embodied in a book, en- titled "The South Pole" (1912). Shortly afterward he planned a trip to the Arctic regions, and the project was well under way, $40,000 having been ap- propriated by the Norwegian Govern- ment for the purpose, when the outbreak of the World War made a postponement necessary. On June 28, 1918, Amundsen, with a crew of eight men and carrying with him two airplanes, set sail on the "Maude" from Christiania for the Arctic Circle. On Sept. 1 he took on oil and supplies at Dixon Island in the White Sea, north of Russia, and sailed northeast. He then pushed east along the north coast of Siberia, until his ship became embedded in the ice floes. This was what he desired, for he believed that the ship would be carried by the floes around the northern end of Nova Zembla and from there to the Liakoflf Islands on the northern coast of Siberia. From that time no word of the expedition came