AMETHYST—AMMANATE.
Eem, which flows into the Zuiderzee. There are
several tobacco-plantations in the district, and a
considerable trade is carried on both in cotton and
woollen goods, and in such articles as corn and
dried herrings. It communicates with Amsterdam,
from which it is distant 24 miles, by means of
barges. A. has a Jansenist college and a court of
justice. It received municipal privileges in 1259.
It was captured in 1483 by the Archduke Maxi-
milian, in 1672 by Montecuculi, and in 1785 by the
French. Pop. 13,000.
A'METHYST, a variety of quartz(q. v.), differing
from common quartz and rock-crystal chiefly in its
beautiful violet-blue or purplish violet colour—well
known as amethystine—which is owing to the pre-
gence of a little peroxide of iron or of manganese.
It is, one of the most esteemed varieties of quartz,
and is much employed for seals, rings, &ec., although,
being comparatively abundant, it 18 much inferior
in price to the true gems. An amethystine tinge is
frequently to be observed in specimens of quartz,
which yet are not perfect A. The tinge is often
very faint, and is frequently confined to the sum-
mits or edges of the crystals. The finest specimens
of A. are brought from India, Ceylon, and Brazil.
It i, however, a common mineral in Furope, and
occurs in many parts of Scotland. It frequently
occurs lining the interior of balls or geodes of agate,
and in veins and cavities in greenstone and other
rocks. , The ancients imagined it to possess the
property of preventing intoxication, and persons
much addicted to drinking therefore wore it on
their necks. The name is derived from a Greek
word which signifies wunintoxicated.—Not to be
confounded with this mineral is that sometimes
called the oriental A., which is a variety of spinel
(q. v.) having an amethystine colour, and is a very
valuable gem.—False amethysts made of glass or
paste are very common, and in general very coarse;
but a very perfect imitation can be, and some-
times is made.
'MHERST, a sea-port of Tenasserim, on the
E. shore of the Bay of Bengal, in lat. 16° 4 N,,
and long. 97° 40’ E., at the entrance of the
Martaban or Saluen. In 1826, the province having
been newly ceded by the Burmese, A. was founded,
after a special survey of all the available sites, as
the commercial capital, being named after the then
governor-general of India, and proclaimed to be an
asylum for the neighbouring Peguers, still subject to
Burmah ; but policy, prestige, and foresight alike
have in some measure failed ; for the harbour, other-
wise commodious enough, labours under two serious
defects—difficulty of access, and exposure to the
south-west monsoon. Even in trade, A. has been
distanced by Moulmein, selected at first merely to
be the military station of the territory. Its exports,
however, are said to be considerable, consisting
chiefly of teak from the upper basin of the river,
and partly of grain from Belu, an island at its
mouth.
A'MHERSTBURG, a town on the river Detroit,
which empties Lake St Clair into Lake Erie. Itis
one of the oldest settlements in Upper Canada, being
named from Lord Amherst, who, by the capture of
Montreal in 1760, completed what General Wolfe had
begun at Quebec in 1759. It occupies the south-west
extremity of the province, the turning-point of climate
and character to the basin of the St Lawrence, the
spot where its waters, after having gained southing
from the 50th to the 42d parallel, suddenly assume
a direction which pretty uniformly carries them
back to their original latitude above the island of
Anticosti. Pop. 1300.
AMI'DOGEN is a substance procured by the
N8
action of the metal potassinm on dry gaseous
ammonia. The latter contains one atom of nitrogen
to three atoms of hydrogen (NH,), whilst A.
contains one to two (NH,). A. forms a very import-
ant class of organic compounds called amides, and
gives rise to a number of substances closely allied
to the alkaloids, many of which, indeed, may be
regarded as natural amides.
AMIENS, an ancient city in the plain of Picardy,
and capital of the department of Somme ; it is the
seat of a bishop and of a court of justice, and
has a citadel and fortifications. It possesses a
college, an academy, a theological seminary, an
industrial school, a school of medicine, a public
library, a picture-gallery, a botanical garden, and
several literary and scientific institutions. Among
its public buildings, the cathedral is a mnoble
edifice, built in 1220, and esteemed a master-
piece of Gothic architecture. Peter the Hermit
was born here. A. has considerable manufactures
of velvet, silk, woollen, and cotton goods, ribbons,
and carpets. But the place owes its celebrity chiefly
to the ¢Peace of A.’ a treaty signed in this city,
March 27, 1802, by Joseph Bonaparte, the Marquis
of Cornwallis, Azara, and Schimmelpennink, and
intended to settle the disputed points between
England, France, Spain, and Holland. By this
treaty, England retained possession of Ceylon
and Trinidad, and an open port at the Cape of
Good Hope; France received back her colonies ;
the republic of the Seven Islands was recognised ;
Malta was restored to the order of the Knights of St
John; Spain and Holland regained their colonies,
with the exception of Trinidad and Ceylon; the
French were to quit Rome, Naples, and Elba; and
Turkey was restored to its integrity as before the
war. . These terms were not received with any
degree of satisfaction by the English, and further
difficulties arising, through the ambition and obstin-
acy of the French, the peace was dissolved, and war
declared against Bonaparte in 1803.
AMLETH, or HAMLETH, Prince of Jiitland, is
said to have lived in the 2d.c. B.c. = According to
Saxo-Grammaticus, he was the son of Horvendill
and Gerutha; and after the murder of his father by
his uncle Fengo, who married Gerutha, he feigned
himself a fool, to save his own life. Saxo relates a
number of little things regarding A., which are a
curious medley of sharp and lively observation, and
apparent madness. We are told that, on one
occasion, when he visited his mother, suspecting
that he was watched, he commenced to crow like
a cock and dance idiotically about the apartment,
until he discovered, hidden in a heap of straw, a
spy, in the person of one of Fengo’s courtiers, whom
he immediately stabbed; he then so terrified his
mother by his reproaches, that she promised to aid
him in his intended revenge on his father’s murderer,
and, according to the old chronicler, really did so.
Scandinavian traditions confirm the existence of a
prince of this name. A field is still pointed out in
Jiitland with a tomb bearing the name of A. In the
vicinity of Elsinore is shewn the spot where the father
of A. was assassinated. Saxo himself does not men-
tion the manner or circumstances of his death; bub
his French translator says that he was murdered at a
banquet. Most of the recent historians of Denmark
consider the history of A. fabulous, but Miiller thinks
there is a substratum of fact in the old myth. It
is the source of Shakspeare’s tragedy of Hamlet,
and thus possesses a perennial interest for all the
civilised world.
AMMANA'TE, BARTOLEME 0, architect and sculp-
tor, born at Florence in 1511, died in 1592. He was
at first a pupil of Baccio Bandinelli, and afterwards
of S.
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