Athenieum Illustre of Ainstciihiiii, which was founded in 1032, in 1877 was reorganized as a university. The Universit}' Library now has more than 100,000 volumes, ineUuling the Rosen- tlial collection of 8000 works on Indian litera- ture. It is rich in manuscripts and original letters, such as a Syrian New Testament and Cssar's De Bella Gallico of the tenth century. Amsterdam possesses excellent facilities for medical study, as her hospitals are famous. Other educational institutions are State, nor- mal, industrial, and commercial schools, the National Academy of Arts, the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Dutch Geographical So- ciety, a school of navigation, and a municipal school for primary teachers, besides a school of acting, set up by the Society for the Promotion of the Art of Acting. The Botanical Garden ranks among the foremost in Europe, and is equipped with a library and ethnographical mu- seum. It was established by the Society Natura Artis Magistra, founder also of the Zoological Gardens. There are numeious other institutions of learning and scientific societies, the most re- markable of the latter being the Maatschappij tot Nut van't Algemeen, or Society for the Public 'elfare, which has spread over all Holland. It was founded at Edam in 1784, and moved to Amsterdam in 1787. It aims at bettering the education and normal culture of the people, and strives toward this end in every conceivable way.
Amsterdam has six theatres, one of them owned by the city. Prominent among the benev- olent institutions are the various orphan asy- lums, one of which, the Diaconic Asylum, erected in 1889, has about 1200 inmates.
For centuries Amsterdam h.as been the centre of Dutch industry, and its diamond polishing factories are the most extensive in the world. These are exclusively in the hands of the Portu- guese Jews, and employ upward of 12.000 work- men. Maehinerj', ship building, and iron mold- ing are important industries, and there are large refineries for borax and camphor in the town, producing over 22,000 tons annually. The pi-epa- ration of rice for the market amounts to 23,000 tons yearly, and, besides, there are large glass- blowing establishments, many breweries and lum- ber mills. Other manufactures are articles of gold and silver, silk, porcelain, and carpets, cor- dials, chocolate, tobacco, leather, dyestuffs, as- tronomical instruments, chemicals, cobalt blue, stearine and sperm candles, and sailcloth.
Amsterdam's commercial importance has ad- vanced rapidly since 1805. Since 1876 the short North Sea Canal has been in operation, running to an artificial harbor of 250 acres on the North Sea. The celebrated North Holland Canal has been supplanted by it for most of the sea tralRe. Within the city much attention is paid to dredg- ing and improvement of the canals centring to the north in the three islands, near which are the docks of the various steamship lines, that connect the city with all the great ports of the world. Here, too, are the naval docks and stores, a vast system of docks for merchant shipping, grana- ries, and railway terminals for the reception of coal and iron ore, raw materials, etc. Another canal connects Amsterdam with Utrecht. There is a floating dry-dock on the north bank of the Y for ships of 4000 tons and of 16 feet draught, while another dock of twice the size has been recently constructed. Amsterdam has need of such improvements, for her proportion of ships entering Holland was 18. S in 1889, and 6.66 in 1899; whereas in those years Rotterdam had 52.1 per cent, and 1)3.3, respectively.
The chief trade is with the Dutch East India colonies, and the imports are mainly tropical products, such as raw sugar, Java and Sumatra tobacco, cofTce from Brazil and Java, tea, chemi- cals, drugs, lumber, and rice. Other articles of impoi't are machinery and manufactured articles, wheat, glassware, and petroleum. In addition to the colonial products — cofi'ee. tobacco, and rice — Amsterdam exports such Dutch products as cheese, beer, manufactured articles mentioned above, and drugs.
Amsterdam is the chief financial centre of the Netherlands, and her stock exchange is one of the most important in Europe. There are many other financial and commercial institutions, and the city is the seat of the Bank of the Netherlands, the successor of the famous Bank of Amsterdam, founded in 1C09, which played so important a role in the history of banking, with a capital of $8,000,000, which has full control of all the country's paper money.
Amsterdam has a complete network of commu- nications with the interior through railway and steamship lines, while various street-car routes, carried on by horse and electric power, traverse her streets. There is also a suburban steam rail- road.
Amsterdam's new method of fortification merits some attention. In 1870 the old walls, had all been razed, and since tlien a system of dikes and sluices has been devised whereby the surrounding country may be flooded; so that now there is only one fort, that at the entrance to the harbor.
Upward of one-fifth of the population of Amsterdam are Catholics, and the Jews form nearly one-ninth. There are, besides, manv Germans. Population in 1879, 310,(iOO: in 1891,"42G.914. In 1900, after a part of Nieuwer Amstel had been added to the city, the population was 510,900.
History. We first hear of Amsterdam in the thirteenth century, when the lords of Amstel had a castle there to protect the town, and when also the Dam which gives the town its name had already been built. The count of Holland, Floris v., gave the ci,ty free trade with his territories, and Amsterdam became part of the County of Holland in 1347. Prom now on the town increased rapidly, and. though devastated by fire in 1421, it was influential enough to obtain the right of bearing the imperial crown as its crest from Maximilian I. After the war for independence, when Antwerp succumbed to the Spaniards, Amsterdam became the chief conuncrcial centre of the North; and after the foundation of the Dutch East and West India Companies, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, with their headquarters in the city, it attained still greater prosperity. Even the wars with England in 1052-54 and 1665-07 did not for long check its progress. The decline of the city came in the latter part of the eighteenth centurv, as a result chiefly of the war with England of" 1780-84, and the alliance with France. Its commerce disap- peared entirely after it became a part of the Fi-ench Empire in 1810, only to revive in the second half of the nineteenth century by the building of the great canals to the sea and "to the Rhine system.
AMSTERDAM. A barren islet of volcanic origin, in the Indian Ocean, situated in lat. 37°
