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218

AMORETTI-AMPHISBÆNA.

work, Della Rabdomanzia Ossia Elettrometria Animale Ricerche Fisiche e Storiche, Milan, 1808, he published, in 1816, an abridgment, Elementi di Elettrometria Animale.

AMORTIZATION; the right of transferring lands in mortmain, i. e. to some community which is never to cease. This word is used in France and Germany to signify the redeeming of public debts. Amortissement, from amortir, is the French word for sinking fund.

AMOS, the prophet; a herdsman who appeared in the vicinity of Jerusalem, under the kings Josias of Judah, and Jeroboam II of Israel, B. C. 850, and preached with zeal against the idolatry then prevailing in Israel. His prophetical book, contained in the Old Testament, is made up of descriptions of the moral profligacy and idolatry of this people, and of threatenings and promises, similar to those which the other Jewish prophets have delivered. His peculiarities are the use of certain rural images, a rounded style, clearness in the construction of his sentences, and distinctness in his descriptions. He is among the best of the Hebrew writers.

AMPELLITES, or CANDLE-COAL, or CANAL-COAL. (See Coal.)

AMPHIARAUS; son of Oicleus (according to some, of Apollo) and Hypermnestra; endowed by the gods with prophetical powers. Foreseeing that he should perish before Thebes, he hid himself; but, being betrayed by his wife, Eriphyle (q. v.), he joined Polynices in his expedition against this city, and was one of his most valiant warriors. The besiegers having been repulsed in one of their attacks, the earth opened under him in his flight, and swallowed him, with his horses. On the spot where this event is said to have taken place, at Oropus, a feast was celebrated in honor of him (Amphiaraa), and, not far from this city, a temple was dedicated to him, where oracles were delivered. His death was revenged by his son, Alcmæon.

AMPHIBIA; animals of the third class, in the Linnæan system, most of which, by their peculiar anatomy, are able to live either upon land or in the water. Since Cuvier's exertions to introduce a better classification in zoology, this term has been superseded by the term reptilia. (See Reptiles.)

AMPHIBOLOGY, in grammar; a loose manner of expression, whereby the sense may be construed into a double meaning. It has a similar application to phrases or

sentences with the word equivocal in respect to words.

ÂMPHIBRACHYS. (See Rhythm.)

AMPHICTYONS, court of the; an assembly composed of deputies from the different states of Greece, according to most authors, established by king Amphictyon, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, according to Strabo, by Acrisius, king of Argos, as a point of union for the several Grecian states. At first, they assembled at Delphi; in later times, at Thermopylæ, or rather at the neighboring village, Anthela. 12 Grecian states sent 2 deputies each, who assembled with great solemnity; composed the public dissensions, and the quarrels of individual cities, by force or persuasion; punished civil and criminal offences, and, particularly, transgressions of the law of nations, and violations of the temple of Delphi. After the decision was published, a fine was inflicted on the guilty state, which, if not paid in due time, was doubled. If the state did not then submit, the whole confederacy took arms to reduce it to obedience. assembly had also the right of excluding it from the confederation. An instance of the exercise of this right gave rise to the Phocian war, which continued 10 years.

AMPHIMACER. (See Rhythm.)

The

AMPHION; Son of Jupiter and Antiope; the eldest of the Grecian musicians. In Lydia, where he married Niobe, the daughter of king Tantalus, he learned music, and brought it thence into Greece. He reigned in Thebes, which was before called Cadmea. A. joined the lower and upper city by walls, built the 7 gates, and gave it the name of Thebes. To express the power of his music, and, perhaps, of his eloquence, the poets said, that, at the sound of his lyre, the stones voluntarily formed themselves into walls; that wild beasts, and even trees, rocks and streams, followed the musician. With the aid of his brother, Zethus, he is said to have revenged Antiope, who was driven into banishment by his father, and to have bound Dirce to the tail of a wild bull; which incident is supposed to be represented by the famous piece of sculpture, the Farnese bull.

AMPHISBÆNA; a genus of serpents, so called on account of the shape of its body, which is of equal thickness from head to tail; they are, consequently, difficult to distinguish. This occasioned the notion of its having two heads. Different naturalists establish different numbers of species. Doctor Shaw mentions two, viz.

the alba and the fuliginosa. The alba is about 18 or 20 inches long, and totally white. It is a native of South America, and a harmless animal. The fuliginosa is white, with black or deep-brown spots. The head is without spots. It is found in many parts of South America, and in Libya. It is innoxious. All the other species are also found in America.

AMPHITHEATRE, with the Romans; a building without a roof, of a round or oval form, destined for the combats of gladiators, or of wild beasts. In the middle was the arena, a large place covered with sand, on which the fights were exhibited. Round about were the vaults or caves, in which the animals were kept; above these was the gallery, from which ascended successive rows of seats, each of greater height and circumference than the preceding. The 14 first were for the senators and judges, the others for the common people. In the year 709 from the building of the city, Julius Cæsar erected the first large amphitheatre at Rome, for his gladiatorial exhibitions. It was of wood, and was pulled down after it had been used. Statilius Taurus, 20 years later, built the first stone one. The Coliseum (q, v.), at Rome, is the largest of all the ancient amphitheatres. In Verona there is one, the interior of which still shows the whole ancient architecture, and is carefully preserved; it is called there arena. Of all the Roman antiquities, none has withstood the effects of time so well as this remarkable building. The form is oval, and the architecture is in the taste of the Coliseum at Rome. There is another at Pola.

AMPHITRITE; daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Nereus and Doris. Neptune wished to make her his wife, and, as she hid herself from him, he sent a dolphin to find her, which brought her to him, and received as a reward a place among the stars. As a goddess and queen of the sea, she is represented as drawn in a chariot of shells by Tritons, or riding on a dolphin, with the trident of Neptune in her hand.

AMPHITRYON; king of Thebes, son of Alcæus, and husband of Alcmena. Plautus, after him Moliere, and, still later, Falk and Kleist, have made the trick played upon him by Jupiter (see Alcmena) the subject of amusing comedies, in which the return of the true A., and his meeting with the false one, occasion several humorous scenes at the palace and in the city. The French give this name to a courteous host.

AMPLIFICATION, in rhetoric; the part of a speech wherein circumstances are enumerated and dwelt upon to excite the minds of the auditors. Some writers on rhetoric understand by amplification only the explanation of a subject by examples. The Greek and Roman rhetorical writers meant by it a mode of adding to or de tracting from the dignity of a subject by an accumulation of words or ideas. Longinus defines amplification the collection of all the circumstances connected with a subject, in order to give force to that which is already proved. The amplification generally embraces both these objects. Cicero and other ancient orators make the amplificatio and enumeratio (recapitulation) essential to a speech. In this case, amplification, also called exaggeratio, embraces only the concluding strokes by which the orator sought to heighten the effect of what he had said. Every one, who makes use of this rhetorical figure, ought to remember the simple and just remark of Boileau:

Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant.

AMPLITUDE, in astronomy; the distance of any celestial body, or other object (when referred by a secondary circle to the horizon), from the east or west points; the complement to the amplitude, or the distance from the north or south point, is called the azimuth.-Amplitude denotes, also, with reference to the direction of the magnetic needle, or compass, the arc of the horizon contained between the sun or a star, at its rising or setting, and the magnetical east or west points of the horizon; or it is the dif ference of the rising or setting of the sun or star from the east or west points of the compass.-In gunnery, amplitude is sometimes used for the range of a shell, or other projectile, from its departure out of the mouth of the piece to the place where it falls. Thus the French engineers speak of the amplitude de parabole, &c.

AMPULLA, in antiquity; a vessel bellying out like a jug, that contained unctions for the bath; also a vessel for drinking at table. In ecclesiastical rites, the ampulla was employed for several purposes, such as holding the oil for chrismation, consecration, &c., also for anointing monarchs at their coronation. In England and France, a vessel of this kind is still in use for the last-mentioned purpose. The French ampulla is at Rheims, the archbishop of which performs the coronation of the French kings. A dove, it is said,

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AMPULLA-AMSTERDAM.

brought this ampulla from heaven for the baptismal unction of the crafty Clovis I, in 496. In the revolution, this ampulla was lost; and it is said that a soldier oiled his boots with the miraculous liquid. On the late coronation of Charles X, the public papers stated that a phial containing some of this unction had survived the catastrophe. The ampulla of the English kings, now in use, is an eagle, weighing about 10 ounces, of the purest chased gold. Having passed through various hands to the Black Prince, it was by him deposited in the tower. Henry IV is the first king who was anointed from it. (See Anointing.)

AMPUTATION, in surgery; that operation by which a member is separated from the body according to the rules of the science. Though the medical art endeavors to prevent the necessity of amputation, yet many cases arise in which it is absolutely necessary, in order to save the life of the patient. It may be considered as one of the great victories which science and skill have gained over barbarism. There is no decisive proof that Hippocrates ever performed this operation. A. C. Celsus, who lived under Tiberius, has left a short description, in his book De Re Medica, of the mode of amputating gangrenous limbs. Paulus Ægineta, about eight centuries afterwards, suggests little improvement. The Arabians seem to have made little progress in the art of suppressing the bleeding after the amputation, which was still the most important desideratum. The greatest improvements were introduced by Pari, a French surgeon, in the 16th century, since whose time amputation has been performed with much skill among all civilized nations, and, in the latest times, with a boldness at which former ages would have shuddered, and with great precision and success. The late wars in Europe have advanced this branch of the surgical art, perhaps, more than any former period, by the number and variety of the cases requiring amputation, which they have presented. Increasing knowledge of anatomy has continually increased the boldness of the operator.

AMRETSIR, i.e. the pool of immortality; formerly called Chak, a town of Hindostan, in the province of Lahore, the principal place of the religious worship of the Seiks. It is, on account of its favorable situation between Cabul and Delhi, Cashmere and the Deccan, a place of great trade; but its chief importance is derived from the sacred pond, constructed

by Ram Dass (one of the earlier pontiffs of the Seik faith), in which the Seiks and other Hindoo tribes immerse themselves, that they may be purified from all sin. This holy basin is 135 paces square, built of brick, having in its centre a temple dedicated to the Hindoo saint Gooroo Govind Singh. Under a silken canopy, in this temple, is deposited the saint's book of religion and laws, called Grant'h. The voluntary contributions of pilgrims and devotees support this place, to which 600 priests are attached.

AMSTERDAM; the chief city of the Netherlands; lon. 4° 44′ E.; lat. 52° 25′ N.; situated at the mouth of the Amstel, where it falls into an arm of the sea, called Y or Wye, 65 miles from Antwerp, 240 miles north-east of Paris. This famous commercial city, by the constitution of the Netherlands, the capital of that kingdom, though not the usual residence of the royal family, was, at the beginning of the 13th century, a fishing village in the possession of the lords of Amstel. About the middle of that century, it became a small town, and obtained a municipal government. In 1296, it was suddenly attacked and plundered by the neighbor ing Kennemers, on account of the participation of Gysbert of Amstel in the murder of the count Floris of Holland, and Gysbert himself was expelled. In this way Amsterdam, together with Amstelland, came under the rule of the counts of Holland, who granted the city many privileges. Amsterdam soon acquired an important commerce in the Baltic sea, and, in the 16th century, was a place of considerable commerce. The transition from the bondage of its lords to the state of subjects of the counts of Holland was the origin of its prosperity. A second cause was its deliverance from the Spanish dominion. It became, in a short time, the first commercial city in the United Provinces. In 1585, after Antwerp had fallen a second time under the dominion of Spain, its extensive commerce was transferred to Amsterdam, and the western or new part of the city was built. The city received new accessions in 1593, 1612, 1658. In 1622, it contained 100,000 inhabitants. Its increasing importance awakened the envy of its neighbors. In 1587, Leicester attempted to take it by treachery, and prince William II, in 1650, by surprise. Both attempts were frustrated by the prudence of the two burgomasters, Hooft and Bicker. The burgomasters of Amsterdam then acquired so much weight in the assembly of the

states general, that their authority, during the first 94 years of the 18th century, rivalled that of the hereditary stadt-holder. During this period of prosperity, A. acquired so great wealth, that it surpassed every other city in Europe. It was the great market of all the productions of the East and West, and its harbor was always full of ships. The fame of Dutch honesty and frugality increased the flourishing trade of the city. This was obstructed, however, by the sand bank before the Pampus, on account of which large vessels could not enter without unloading part of their cargoes into lighters. Vessels, moreover, could not sail from the Zuyder-zee, near the Texel, except with certain winds. Finally, A. has often experienced great depression during the continuance of wars. Even in the glorious period of the 17th century, in 1653, the war with England did such injury to its commerce, that 4000 houses in the city were left unoccupied, and, it is said, the exchange was overgrown with grass. Commerce, however, afterwards revived, and continued, with little diminution, even during the unquiet period from 1780 to 1794, with the exception of the time of the English war, from 1781 to 1782. But after the change of government in 1795, the trade and wealth of A. continually diminished. The forced alliance of Holland with France, which obliged her to follow the French policy, against the powers at war with France, operated to the great disadvantage of A. Louis Bonaparte endeavored to restore the trade of Holland by means of grants and privileges, and even transferred his residence and the seat of government to A. in 1808; but the first measure only irritated Napoleon against Holland, and the other, though it opened some new sources of trade, was followed by various disadvantages. The complete incorporation of Holland with France, in 1810, entirely annihilated the foreign trade of A.; and many other measures, as, for instance, the introduction of the monopoly of tobacco and of the droits réunis, as they were called, were very injurious to the domestic trade of the city. The revolution of 1813 restored the business of A. Since that time, its commerce has increased very considerably. Many of the long-established houses are very rich, but, nevertheless, for several reasons, less actively engaged in trade than the merchants of Antwerp.-Besides the public buildings, Amsterdam contained, in 1732, 26,385 dwelling-houses, besides a great

number of ship-yards, manufactories of ropes, cordage, tobacco, &c. The number of inhabitants was, in 1796, 217,000, in 1808, 208,000, among whom were 20,000 Jews. In 1820, however, there were but 180,000, of whom 90,000 were Calvinists, 38,000 Catholics, and 30,000 Lutherans. From comparing the censuses, it appears that the proportion of the male to the female sex is about 4 to 5. In 1817, the number of the poor of all degrees amounted to 39,000. On account of the lowness of the site of the city, the greater part of it is built on piles. A. affords a splendid prospect from the harbor by reason of its numerous steeples; the view from the Amstel bridge is also very fine. In earlier times, A. was a strong fortress. Its 26 bastions, and its means of inundating the country, made even Louis XIV cautious of attacking it; but, in 1787, when threatened by a Prussian army of only moderate size, it was obliged to surrender after the capture of the fortified villages in the vicinity. In consequence of the changes which have taken place in the mode of conducting sieges, A. can be defended only by the inundation of the surrounding country. Yet it is said, that, in the last years of the reign of the ex-king Louis, a plan was formed for the regular fortification of A. On the side towards Haarlem, the city is, at present, protected by the sluice of Halfwegen, and on the eastern side by the fortress of Naarden. Within the semicircle which the borders of the city describe on the land side, several canals form many smaller semicircles, which all open into the Amstel river, or into the Y, or Wye. Among the public buildings, the old stadthouse is particularly famous. The building began under the superintendence of the architect Jacob van Kampen, after the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, which fixed the independence of the Dutch republic, and it was finished in 1655. In the vaults under the stadt-house are deposited the treasures of the bank of Amsterdam. This splendid building stands upon 13,659 piles, is 282 feet long, 235 feet wide, and 116 feet high, without reckoning the high tower. The interior of this magnificent building was decorated, by the Dutch painters and sculptors of the 17th century, with their master-pieces. The patriotic Dutch were therefore highly offended, when Louis Bonaparte, in 1808, chose the stadt-house for his residence, and his attendants and courtiers occupied the council-rooms of the fathers of the city. The hall prepared for the

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the Oude Kerk monuments are erected to the naval heroes Heemskerk, van der Zaan, Zweerts and van der Hultz. The Western Kerk has a handsome steeple. With so much that is beautiful and great, and with a trade which affords the means of support to every industrious man, A. has, indeed, the disadvantage of a very damp air, and an offensive, mephitic smell, which often rises, in summer, from the canals. It suffers, also, from the want of good spring-water, and from the inconvenience of very high and narrow dwellinghouses, occasioned by its crowded population. The new canal, extending from its harbor to the extreme point of North Holland, 26 feet in depth, is of great advantage to A. It removes some of the chief impediments to the commerce of the city, viz. the necessity which existed of unloading large vessels, before they could enter the harbor, and of encountering the passage through the Zuyder-zee, which was peculiarly difficult with contrary winds. The shipping of goods to and from Amsterdam will, therefore, be effected in future more promptly and cheaply. This canal extends from A. to Niewe Diep. The distance between the extreme points is 41 English miles; but the canal is about 50 miles and a half long. The breadth at the surface is 124 English feet; the breadth at the bottom, 36 feet; the depth, 20 feet and 9 inches. It passes through a somewhat marshy country, and touches, besides several villages, the cities of Purmerend and Alkmaar. Like the Dutch canals generally, its level is that of the high tides of the sea, from which it receives its supply of water. The only locks which it requires, of course, are two tide-locks at its extremities; but there are, also, two sluices with flood-gates in the intermediate space. The locks and sluices are double, that is to say, there are two in the breadth of the canal. The canal is wide enough to admit of one frigate passing another. The time spent in tracking vessels from the Helder to A. is 18 hours.-There is an excellent account of this city, in a medical point of view, by D. C. I. Nieuwenhuijs: Proeve tener geneeskundige plaaesbeschrijving der Stad Amsterdam, Amst., 1820, 4 vols.

reception of the throne on this occasion is probably the finest in Europe. The magnificent museum of Dutch paintings, which were exhibited in the stadt-house, is now transferred to the Trippen-house. The present king, also, resides in this palace (the former stadhuijs), when he is at Amsterdam. The public weighhouse, which was opposite to it, was pulled down under king Louis, in order to have an open space before the palace, and was transferred to the western market. The magistrates of the city now assemble in the former royal hall. The exchange of Amsterdam, which was built between 1608 and 1613, rests upon five vaulted arches, under which the Amstel flows into the Damrack water; it is 250 feet long and 140 feet wide. The East India house, of which a whole wing, used for granaries, lately tumbled down, the national ship-yard, and the magazine upon the Katenburg, at the Y, are at present used for other purposes of commerce and navigation. The beautiful Trippen-house, where the academy of arts and sciences assembles, is now a temple of the arts and sciences. The society felix meritis (established by the merchants), which promotes the study of every thing that can occupy and ennoble the mind; the society doctrina et amicitia; the tot nut van't algemeen, devoted to the liberal arts and sciences; the excellent reading-room; several musical societies; the Dutch, French and German theatres; the hortus medicus, belonging to the Athenæum illustre; the famous Latin schools; the many excellent national poets,-prove the taste of the citizens of A. for science and learning. Their regard for religion, charity and order is manifested by the numerous churches, by the hospital for the aged, the poor-house and orphan asylum, the houses of correction, the navigation school, the many societies for humane objects, and the work-houses of different descriptions. The churches are numerous; among them the Dutch Reformed have 10, the French 1, the English 1, the Roman Catholics 18, and even the Greeks and Armenians have a church. The most splendid is the new church upon the Damm, in which the pulpit and organs are master-pieces; here you see the monuments of the admiral de Ruyter, of the valiant von Galen, and of the great poet Vondel; here, also, after so many storms, the fabric of the state was strengthened by the adoption of the constitution, and by the allegiance sworn to the present sovereign, March 29 and 30, 1814. In

AMSTERDAM; an island of the South Pacific ocean, in lon. 76° 54′ E., and lat. 38° 42′ S., first visited by van Vlaming, a Dutch navigator, in 1697, and explored, in 1793, by the gentlemen attached to lord Macartney's embassy to China. The length of the island, from N. to S., is

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