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 AMSDOEF AMSTERDAM 443 of the pagan pre-Mohaminedan era, which were suspended to the Caaba, whence their name (pi. Moallacat, suspended). He was an opponent of Mohammed, and wrote satirical verses against him. Lette published the Moal- lacah at Leyden in Arabic, and Sir Wil- liam Jones the English translation (London, 1782). The poem is purely imaginative. It was republished, together with other produc- tions of the poet, by Baron MacGuckin Slane (Paris, 1857), and also by Arnold, in the Sep- tem Moallacdt (Leipsic, 1850). AMSDORF, .ikohiiis von, a German reformer, bishop of Naumburg, born near Wrzen, Sax- ony, Dec. 3, 1483, died at Eisenach, May 14, 1565. He was educated for the church, and early acquired distinction in theology. He seems to have been the confidant of Luther, and attended him in some of his early trials as a reformer. He was a sort of apostle of the reformation, going to Magdeburg (1524), to Goslar (1528 and 1531), and to the principality of Grubenhagen (1534), as the expounder and defender of the principles of the reformation. He was fond of controversy, and this peculiar- ity more than once involved him in personal difficulties with his friends. He contended that good works were not only not necessary, but prejudicial to salvation. In the attempt to secure concord between the Lutherans and the Zwinglians (1536), Amsdorf violently op- posed the movement, probably on account of his personal hostility to Melanchthon. In 1542 he was appointed bishop of Naumburg, and was consecrated by Luther, who boasted of the uncanonical manner in which the service had been performed, as he himself says, "without suet, lard, tar, grease, or coals." This involved him in a contest with Von Pflugk, who had been regularly appointed by the chapter to the same office. Amsdorf was a violent opponent of the Augsburg Interim, and was one of the leaders in the adiaphoristic controversy. AMSLER, Samuel, one of the greatest German engravers, born at Schinznach, Switzerland, Dec. 17, 1791, died in Munich, May 18, 1849. He passed several years in Rome, and in 1829 was appointed professor of engraving in the academy of Munich. He made a great num- ber of fine engravings from Michel Angelo, Raphael, Schwanthaler, Thorwaldsen, Kaul- bach, Overbeck, and other artists. AMSTEL, a small river of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland, formed by the union of the Drecht and Mydrecht. It passes through the city of Amsterdam, entering it on the S. E., and, after a winding northerly course of 10 miles, uniting with the Y. AMSTERDAM, the largest city of Holland, capital of the kingdom of the Netherlands and of the province of North Holland, situated on the S. bank of the Y, an inlet or arm of the Zuyder-Zee, where that is joined by the river Amstel, 10 m. E. of Haarlem and 31 m. N. N. E. of the Hague ; lat. 52 22' N., Ion. 4 53' E. ; pop. in 1870, 281,805, mostly of the Dutch Reformed church, and including about 60,000 Catholics, 36,000 Lutherans, 4,000 Anabaptists, 1,000 Remonstrants, 28,000 German and about 3,000 Portuguese Jews. It is one of the most remarkable cities in the world, resembling Venice in the intermixture of land and water, but much larger than Venice, and the canals, being lined with quays, present scenes of ani- mation and enterprise. At the beginning of the 13th century it was but a small fishing village, subject to the lords of Amstel. It was constituted a town in the middle of that cen- tury; was taken possession of by "William III., count of Holland, in 1296 ; fortified in 1482 ; was for a long time strongly Catholic (the Protestant citizens having been driven out by the duke of Alva), and joined the confederation of the United Provinces in 1578. Free tolera- tion was now granted to all sects and religious beliefs, and with additional privileges granted to it in 1581 by the prince of Orange, and the ruin of its rival city Antwerp by the closing of the Scheldt in 1648, it soon reached a high- ly prosperous state, and has since advanced with but few interruptions, owing chiefly to wars with England, till it is at present one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The form of the city is that of a crescent, the arms pro- jecting into the Y, and thus forming the port. The enormous dams thrown up since 1851 re- sist the influx of the sea into the canals, and are provided with floodgates of the strongest construction to withstand the pressure of high tides. They form the east and west docks, capable of holding 1,000 vessels. The principal mouth of the Amstel divides the city into two parts. The land side was formerly surrounded by walls, now replaced by a ditch 30 yards wide lined with trees, which make a pleasant promenade. Some of the bastions are now occupied by windmills, the city relying for defence against attacks chiefly upon the facility with which the surrounding flat country can be flooded from the sea. Amsterdam stands upon flat, soft, marshy ground. The houses are built upon piles driven through this surface soil to the depth of 40 to 50 feet into a subsoil of clay or sand. The canals by which the city is intersected, and on which all heavy freights are transported, divide it into 90 islands, and are crossed by about 300 bridges. The city is about 10 miles in circumference. There are eight iron gates, each named after the town toward which it opens. The older portion of the city is irregularly built, and many of the streets are narrow and the houses poor. The newer por- tions are very handsome. The streets run in parallels along the former walls, and are con- sequently semicircular. In the centre of each is a canal, lined with clean paved quays, which are planted with trees. Three streets in this portion of the city are especially noteworthy for their length and breadth, and the elegance of the buildings which line them. These are the Heeren, Keizers, and Prinsen grachten.