CHAPTER XIII 



AMSTERDAM 



COMPARED with many other large cities of Europe, 

 Amsterdam is a city of recent origin. It was founded 

 in the fifteeenth century, at which time a castle was 

 located here and a dam, which gives the city its name, 

 was constructed where the Amstel enters a small arm 

 of the Zuiderzee. The site of the old dam is now the 

 center of a semicircular city of 538,800 (1902) inhab- 

 itants. 



Amsterdam has long been prominent for its com- 

 mercial activity and for extensive and far-seeing pro- 

 jects intended to improve its opportunities for commerce. 

 In the seventeenth century Amsterdam was the greatest 

 mercantile city in the world, and it is to-day a place of 

 great commercial importance. 



From an engineering standpoint, the construction of 

 the city is a subject of unusual interest. With the 



Peculiar con- ^ am as a center > canals have been built in 

 structionof in the form of numerous concentric circles. 

 Intersecting these like radii are other canals 

 which enable water communication to exist between 

 all parts of the city. 



The harbor occupies the position of a diameter for 

 all the concentric canals, but, speaking accurately, it 

 is shaped like a crescent whose points extend like open 

 arms, one to the Zuiderzee and the other toward the 



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