Exchange. ROTTERDAM. 37. Route. 308

surpassed on the Continent only by Hamburg and Antwerp. The
river, which is here joined by the Rotte, a small river on the right,
is tidal for a considerable distance, the risé of the tide varying
from 4 to 8 ft., ording to the wind. Rotterdam received its
first municipal privileges in 1340, but at the time of the Re-
public it was only the first of the so-called small towns. Its
modern prosperity dates from the separation of Belgium from the
kingdom of the Netherlands, when Holland levied navigation dues
on the Scheldt (4830-39; comp. p. 170), but the most important
factors in its progress have been the construction of the Nieuwe
Waterweg (p. 294) to replace the silted-up mouth of the Meuse
(p. 310), by which the largest sea-going ships are admitted to the
juays of the town, and the completion of the new docks on the left
bank of the Meuse. About one-half of the total national imports by
sea and nearly one-half of the exports (p. xliii) pass through it,
besides four-fifths of the Dutch trade with the Rhine. The most
important cargoes are petroleum, grain, and coffee, then sugar,
tobacco, rice, tea, spices, wood, Spanish ore, and British and West-
phalian coal. The cattle-market is the most important in Holland.
Near the harbour are large ship-building yards, distilleries, breweries,
tobacco, margarine, and cocoa factories, and machine-works.

The main portion of the city, on the right bank of the Meuse, is
intersected by numerous canals, which lend a characteris air to
the town, and by the Viaduct of the state railway, constructed in
1870-77 and nearly 1 M. long. The Beurs Station or City Railway
Station (Pl. E, 3; p. 300) lies in the centre of the town, above
the level of the streets, and is reached by flights of steps.

Opposite the railway-station is the Exchange (Pl. 3; B, 3),
designed by Van der Werff, the painter, and built of sandstone in
1722 (enlarged in 1909-10), enclosing a spacious court, flanked by
colonnades and covered with g Business-hour 1-2 p.m. (adm.
25 c., after 4.5 p.m. 50c.). The tower contains a fine set of chimes.

Tothe N.W. of the Exchange lies the Groorr Manrxt (PI. D, 8, 2),
the greater part of which is constructed on vaulting over a canal. It
is embellished with a bronze statue, by Hendrik de Keyser (p. 369),
of the illustrious Erasmus of Rotterdam (Pl. 40), properly Gerrit
Gerritss, who was born at Rotterdam in 1467 and died at Bale in
1536. The monument was erected in 1622 and bears long Dutch
and Latin inscriptions added in 1677.

The adjacent Hoocsrraar (Pl. D, 2), or High Street, which
separates the business quarter on the Meuse from the congested inner
town, is the chief thoroughfare in Rotterdam, and is often thronged
till late in the evening. — The Wyde Kerkstraat leads hence to the

N, to the church of St. Lawrence. The fagade of the house No. 3
in this street, with a statuette of Erasmus in the pediment, is a
reproduction of the front of the house in which the great scholar
was born.

 

    

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

    
      

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BazpeKer’s Belgium and Holland. 15th Edit. 49

asa a