TOPOGEAPHY. 



481 



was most favourable for carrying on commerce, and this accounts for tlie rapid 

 growth of a city only founded in the thirteenth century. The island, which was 

 then dyked in, still forms the nucleus of the modern city, which is cut up by 

 concentric and radiating canals into ninety distinct islands, joined to each other by 

 over 300 bridges. Most of the houses are built upon piles, and it was with 

 reference to this feature that Erasmus said he knew of a city the inhabitants 

 of which perched like birds upon the tops of trees. The royal palace rises 

 upon a foundation of 13,659 piles. Amsterdam is certainly an original city, but 

 can hardly be likened to Venice, notwithstanding its numerous canals, for it boasts 

 neither the marble palaces nor the serene sky of the Queen of the Adriatic. 



Fig. 271. — Leyden. 

 Scale 1 : 100,000. 



■ 1 Mile. 



Amsterdam was the birthplace of many famous painters, and its galleries are 

 rich in works by Rembrandt, Van der Heist, and other great masters of the Dutch 

 school. It is the seat of a university, of an Academy of Science, and an Academy 

 of Arts, and possesses botanical and zoological gardens, as well as two small public 

 parks. Its open spaces, however, are far too limited in extent for a city anything 

 but remarkable for its sanitary condition. The rain-water collected on the dunes 

 is now conveyed to it through pipes ; but notwithstanding the extreme cleanliness 

 of the inhabitants, the death rate still amounts to 34 per 1,000 inhabitants. 



In the seventeenth century Amsterdam was the most important maritime city 

 of Europe, but it is, so no longer, for only 1,200 vessels of 400,000 tons burden 

 annually enter its ports from abroad, which is far below the shipping of Rotterdam. 

 106 



