NETHERLANDS: AMSTERDAM. 
91 
At present the company own several warehouses of the most modern type and 
provided with all facilities for the necessary dealing with coffee, gum, tobacco, 
honey, and indigo. The famous Banda nutmegs are warehoused and manipu 
lated by Blaauwhoedenveem at Amsterdam, this city being still the world’s 
emporium for these spices. It is of course needless to add that the company’s 
capital has gradually been increased and that its warehouses are at present pro 
vided with all modern machinery and railway accommodation. Furthermore, 
the depth of water alongside the quays is such as to permit ocean steamers of 
any kind to moor directly in front of the warehouses. 
COMMUNAL WAREHOUSES. 
^ Four kinds of dock magazines are distinguished in the Netherlands: 
Free public entrepôts owned by the State or the municipality, pri 
vate free entrepôts, fictive entrepôts, and particular entrepôts. They 
do not differ much, however, as to the regulations. The first two are 
under continuous observation by the custom-house authorities. Both 
dutiable and free merchandise may be stored in them, but articles 
like sugar, wines, spirits, etc., which are subject to duties on a higher 
scale, can only be received in the second class. In the third and 
fourth classes the control by the customs officials is occasional ; the 
stores of the third class, including the municipal petroleum stores and 
tobacco warehouses, are generally confined to one article. Store 
houses of the fourth class accept all kinds of goods against negotia 
ble documents. The respective companies, which are known as 
u veems,” charge themselves with storage and transport. 
These magazines are all buildings of five or six stories. On the 
Water side room is left in front for a crane path and for a platform 
2.50 meters (8.2 feet) in width at the level of the first floor. Two 
tracks are not, as a rule, required in front at Amsterdam, because 
much of the merchandise arrives and leaves by boat, while at the back 
at least three tracks and a roadway 8 meters (26.2 feet) in width are 
necessary. There are four tracks at some warehouses. In the new 
communal warehouses the iron skeleton of the building in embedded 
m about an inch of cement, and the long warehouses are divided by 
fireproof walls in bulkhead fashion, without any doors, in order to 
reduce the dangers from fire. The lifts and stairways are outside the 
fcal house walls and connect the balconies. The width of the build 
ings is 30 meters (98.4 feet). Larger buildings would be too dark, 
filie warehouses are, like the sheds, illuminated by electric incandes 
cent lamps. Each floor of the building can support a load of 2 tons per 
square meter (lOf square feet). At the back of these warehouses are, 
first, the tracks and roadway we have spoken of, then a public street 
jind cattle market and slaughterhouses. These latter buildings 
have their fronts on the quay of the new canal (Nieuwe Vaart). 
The new communal entrepôt was opened on January 1. 1900, and 
the old entrepôt closed for general commercial purposes on December 
of the same year. The transfer of the merchandise from the old 
the new entrepôt having for the most part been made when opera 
tions were begun in the new, on November 1, 1900, an area of 30,000 
square meters (35,880 square yards) was let, while about 23,000 meters 
(27,500 square yards) remained under the administration of the 
hardens.