AMRITISIR—AMSTERDAM. 
  
  
with his thumb, or a tourniquet is adjusted over it. 
Another assistant supports the limb. The surgeon 
with one hand lifts the tissues from the bone, 
and transfixing them with a long narrow knife, 
cuts rapidly downwards and towards the sur- 
face of the skin, forming a flap ; he then repeats this 
on the other side of the limb. An assistant now 
draws up these flaps, and the knife is carried round 
the bone, dividing any flesh still adhering to it. 
The surgeon now saws the bone. He then, with a 
small forceps, seizes the end of the main artery, and 
drawing it slightly from the tissues, an assistant ties 
it with a thread. All the vessels being secured, the 
flaps are stitched together with a needle and thread, 
and a piece of wet lint is laid over the wound. An 
expert surgeon can remove a limb thus in from 30 
to 60 seconds. 
AMRITSI'R, a city of the Punjab, in N. lat. 31° 
40, and E. long. 74° 45, containing 115,000 inhabit- 
ants. It is said to be larger than Lahore, the seat of 
government. It is, in fact, the religious metropolis, 
a distinction which, along with its name, it owes;to 
its ¢ pool of immortality, on an islet of which stands 
the chief temple of the Sikh faith. A. is a favourite 
haunt of pilgrims, to protect or to overawe whom 
Runjeet Singh built a formidable citadel, which the 
British have strengthened; and it was the place 
where, perhaps to bind the slippery Sikhs more 
firmly, was signed the treaty of 1846, for ceding to 
the British the territory between the Beas and the 
Sutlej. A.is said to be the richest and most pros- 
perous city in Northern India, being connected with 
the capital, distant 36 miles to the west, by a canal, 
possessing considerable manufactures of cotton, silks, 
shawls, &c., and carrying on considerable trade at 
once with Hindustan to the south, and with Central 
Asia to the north. 
AMSLER, SAMUET, professor of the art of engrav- 
ing on copper, in the Academy of Arts, Munich, 
was born December 17, 1791, at Schinznach, in 
Switzerland, received his first lessons from Lips 
of Zurich, and afterwards studied under Hess, in 
Munich. His first great work was an engraving 
from a Magdalen by Carlo Dolce. In 1816, he 
went to Rome, where, in several engravings of 
statues by Thorwaldsen, he succeeded well in uniting 
the characteristics of the originals with the simple 
style of Marcus Antonio. Aided by Barth and 
Hildburghausen, he engraved a title-page for the 
Lay of the Nibelungen, from a design by Cornelius. 
During his second sojourn in Rome (1820—1824), he 
began his great work, an engraving of ¢ Alexander’s 
Triumphal Procession,” by Thorwaldsen. At Munich, 
in 1831, he finished his large plate of the ¢ Burial of 
Christ,” by Raphael, which, with his engraving of 
a_ statue of Christ, by Dannecker, displayed the 
bighest qualities of imitative art. These works 
were followed by a ¢Holy Family, from Raphael, 
and the ‘Madonna di Casa Tempi” His last great 
work was an engraving from Overbeck’s ¢ Triumph 
of Religion in the Arts’ A. died May 18, 1849. 
His style is marked by a clear and noble treatment 
of form, rather than by strong contrast of tones. 
Few engravers have equalled A. in his deep know- 
ledge and faithful representation of the works of 
Raphael. 
A'MSTERDAM, or AMSTELDAM (the dam or 
dike of the Amstel), the chief city of the Netherlands, 
and capital of the province of North Holland, is 
situated at the confluence of the Amstel with the Ij 
or Y (pronounced Eye), an arm of the Zuiderzee, 
and is divided by the two arms of the former, and 
numerous canals, into 95 small islands, connected by 
290 bridges. Almost the whole of the city, which 
extends in the shape of a crescent, is founded on 
216 
  
| piles. At the beginning of the 13th c., it was merely 
a fishing-village, with a small castle, the residence of 
the Lords of Amstel. In 1296, on account of the 
murder of Count Floris of Holland, the rising town 
was demolished, and its inhabitants were compelled 
to leave it. Afterwards, with Amstelland (the dis- 
trict on the banks of the Amstel), it was taken under 
the protection of the Counts of Holland, and under 
them enjoyed several privileges which contributed to 
its subsequent prosperity. In 1482, it was walled 
and fortified. It soon rose to be the first commercial 
place in the united states of the Netherlands; in 
1585 was considerably enlarged by the building of 
the new town on the west; and in 1622 had 100,000 
inhabitants. This prosperity excited the envy of its 
neighbours. The English, under Leicester, in 1587, 
and William II., Prince of Orange, in 1650, endea- 
voured to gain possession of the flourishing city ; but 
their designs were frustrated by the good manage- 
ment of the burgomasters of A. In the 17th c., the 
war with England so far reduced the commerce of 
A., that in the year 1653, about 4000 houses were 
uninhabited. Prosperity was restored during the 
next century, and, though commerce was again 
injured by the disputes with England in 1781 and 
1782, it once more revived. The union of Holland 
with France in 1810 entirely destroyed the foreign 
trade of A., while the excise and other new regula- 
tions impoverished its inland resources; but the 
old firms proved strong enough to live through the 
time of difficulty, and in 1815 commerce again 
began to expand. 
The city has a fine aspect, when seen from the 
harbour, or from the high bridge over the Amstel. 
Numerous church towers and spires rise on every 
side, to relieve the flatness of the prospect. The old 
ramparts have been pulled down, and wind-mills for 
grinding corn, and other purposes, have been erected 
on the 28 bastions. Rich grassy meadows surround 
the city. On the west side are a great number of 
saw-mills. The three principal streets in A., each 
of which is two miles long, are the Heerengraacht, 
Keizergraacht, and Prinzensgraacht. They are not 
surpassed by any in Kurope for length, breadth, 
or general elegance. Along the middle of each, as 
of the other streets in A., flow canals, the banks of 
which are lined with rows of trees. The houses are 
built principally of brick, and some have their gables 
towards the streets, which gives them a very pictur- 
esque appearance. In old times, A. was strongly 
fortified ; but now its only defence consists in the 
sluices, which can flood in a few hours the surrounde- 
ing land. A hard frost, however, like that of 1794—5, 
when Pichegru entered the city, would render even 
this means of defence useless. 
The population was numbered at 180,000 in 1820 ; 
but in 1857 it amounted to 260,000, the majority 
of whom are Dutch Calvinists. Of the remainder, 
the most numerous body are the Roman Catholics, 
next the Lutherans, and next the Jews. The chief 
industrial establishments are numerous dock-yards, 
manufactories of sails, ropes, tobacco, cloth, plush, 
silks, gold and silver plate and jewellery, colours and 
chemical preparations, breweries, distilleries, with 
export houses for corn and colonial produce. Among 
the public buildings, the Stadhuis, formerly used as 
the palace of King Louis Bonaparte, and still re- 
tained by the present reigning family, is a noble 
and imposing structure, raised upon 13,659 piles, and 
extending 262 feet in length, by 206 feet in breadth, 
surmounted by a round tower, rising 327 feet from 
the base. It is chiefly remarkable for the great hall, 
111 feet long, 52 feet wide, and 90 feet high, lined 
with white Italian marble—an apartment of great 
splendour. 
The Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), founded in 1408, 
  
  
  
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