SALOMON 



SALSETTE 



119 



Salomon, JOHANN PETER, violin-player and 

 musical composer, born at Bonn in 1745. When 



>ung he was attached to the service of Prince 

 enry of Prussia, for whom he composed several 

 operas. He settled in London, and his series of 

 Philharmonic Concerts there in 1790, for the first of 

 which he arranged to have Haydn present, form 

 an era in the history of music, in that they led to 

 the production of Haydn's twelve grandest sym- 

 phonies. In 1800 Salomon retired from public 

 life, but continued to compose songs, glees, and 

 violin solos and concertos. He died on 25th 

 November 1815, and was interred in Westminster 

 Abbey. 



Salona. an ancient and now ruined city of 

 DalniiUia, stood at the head of a gulf of the 

 Adriatic, about 3 miles NE. of the spot on which 

 Diocletian afterwards built his gigantic palace of 

 (q.v.). It was made a Roman colony in 



78 B.C., and later became the capital of Dalmatia 

 and one of the most important cities and seaports of 

 provincial Rome. But it was frequently captured 

 by the Goths and other barbarians, and in 639 was 

 completely destroyed by the Avars. The inhabit- 

 ants who escaped took refuge in Hadrian's palace. 

 The ruins have been excavated during the 19th 

 century ; there are now to be seen remains of the 

 former walls, the shell of the ancient Christian 

 cathedral, traces of an amphitheatre, and other 

 structures. The city was early mode the seat of a 

 bishop, who was soon advanced to the dignity of 

 archbishop of all Dalmatia. After the destruction 

 of the city the archbishop converted the temple of 

 Jupiter at Spalato into his cathedral. 



Sal on i OH, or SALONIKI (Turk. Selanik), the 

 second commercial city of European Turkey, next 

 after Constantinople, stands at the head of the 

 Gulf of Salonica, and since 1889 has been connected 

 by rail with Belgrade m& Uskiib and Nisch, and 

 so has direct railway communication with Vienna 

 (820 miles distant). The city climbs up the rocky 

 heights that stretch back from the shore, and is 

 overlooked by a citadel, the ancient acropolis. 

 From the sea it has a fine appearance, being sur- 

 rounded with white walls, 5 miles in circumference, 

 and having its houses and mosques embowered in 

 trees of dark foliage. The streets previous to 1889 

 were narrow, rough, and dirty ; since that year 

 they have been widened and excellently paved and 

 drained. The principal buildings of interest are 

 the mosques, which were, most of them, Christian 

 churches, and preserve on their walls many valu- 

 able evidences of Byzantine art. St Sophia, 

 modelled after its namesake at Constantinople, 

 built in Justinian's reign, and a mosque since 1 589, 

 is shaped like a Greek cross and surmounted by a 

 dome covered with mosaics. In the great fire of 

 September 3-4, 1890, which did 800,000 worth of 

 damage to the town, it was a good deal injured, 

 but not irreparably, though the archives were 

 burned. St George, dating probably from the 

 time of Constantine, is circular in form ; its dome 

 too is covered with fine mosaics, which were spoilt 

 greatly when the church (mosque) was 'restored' 

 in 1889. St Demetrius (7th century ) is decorated 

 internally with slabs of different coloured marble. 

 The Old "Mosque was anciently a temple of Venus. 

 Here is the propylaeum of the hippodrome in 

 which Theodosius in 390 ordered the massacre of 

 7000 of the citizens of Salonica. The Via Equatia, 

 the great high-road from the Adriatic coast (i.e. 

 from Rome) to Byzantium, passes through this 

 city. Its entrance and exit were marked by hand- 

 some Roman arches, of which that at the west end 

 wan taken down in 1867 ; the other, the arch of 

 Constantine, at the east end, still stands, but in a 

 ruinous condition. The commerce of the port is 



steadily increasing, especially since the opening of 

 the railway to Servia. The imports, consisting 

 chiefly of metal wares, textiles, coffee, petroleum, 

 salt, sugar, rice, and soap, reach an annual average 

 of 1,377,000. The exports corn, cotton, opium, 

 wool, tobacco, skins, silk cocoons, &c. average 

 1,400,000. One-third of the total maritime trade 

 ( 1,500,000 tons in and out) is in the bands of Great 

 Britain. The native industries include the manu- 

 facture of cotton, flour, soap, bricks, leather, silk, 

 and carpets. Pop. ( 1890) estimated at 121,600, of 

 whom nearly 61,000 were Jews of Spanish descent, 

 25,000 Turks, and 14,000 Greeks. 



Salonica is the ancient T/iessalonica, to whose 

 Christian community St Paul addressed the two 

 Epistles to the Thessalonians. At this city too 

 Cicero dwelt when he withdrew from Rome after 

 the suppression of the Catiline conspiracy. Thes- 

 salonica was built by Cassander about 315 B.C. on 

 the site of an older city named Therme, and was 

 called after his wife, sister of Alexander the Great. 

 It soon became a place of importance as the princi- 

 pal harbour of Macedonia, and later was the chief 

 station on the Via Equatia. Under the Byzantine 

 emperors it successfully withstood the Goths and 

 the Slavs, but was captured by Moslems from 

 Africa in 904, when they carried away 22,000 of 

 its people into slavery, and by the Normans of 

 South Italy in 1185. After several changes the 

 city passed into the hands of the Venetians, and 

 from them the Turks took it in 1430. 



Saloop. See SASSAFRAS. 



Salop. See SHROPSHIRE. 



Salpa. a remarkable genus of free-swimming 

 Tunicates, included along with Doliolum and 

 Anchinia in the order Thaliacea. Several species 

 occur in the warmer seas, transparent pelagic 

 animals, complex in structure and in life-history. 

 The body is somewhat barrel-shaped, open at both 

 ends, ringed round by several distinct but incom- 

 plete hoops of muscle, controlled by a complex 

 nervous system, possessed of eyes and other less 

 definite sense-organs, with compressed lateral vis- 

 cera. In the life-history there is an alternation of 

 generations. There are asexual forms or 'nurses,' 

 from which there grows out a long ventral 'stolon.' 

 This stolon is segmented into a chain of sexual 

 buds, and the whole chain is set free. As the 

 individuals become mature they separate from one 

 another, the chain breaks into its links. Each of 

 these produces an ovum, which after fertilisation 

 develops into an embryo and into the asexual 

 ' nurse ' form with which we began. The sexual 

 forms are hermaphrodite, like all Tunicata, but 

 cross-fertilisation seems to occur. 



Sal Prunelle, purified nitre in mass, or fused 

 and rolled into small balls. See NlTRE. 



Salses. See VOLCANOES. 



Salsette, an island lying N. of Bombay, with 

 which it is connected by a bridge and a causeway. 

 It is a beautiful island, diversified by mountain 

 and hill, studded with the ruins of Portuguese 

 churches, convents, and villas, and rich in extensive 

 rice-fields, cocoa-nut groves, and palm-trees. Area, 

 240 sq. m. ; population, 111,000; chief town, Thana 

 (q.v.). Nearly one hundred caves and cave- 

 temples exist at Kdnhari or Keneri, in the 

 middle of the island, five miles west of Thana. 

 They are excavated in the face of a single lull, 

 and contain elaborate carving, chiefly representa- 

 tions of Buddha, many of colossal size. There are 

 caves in other localities besides those at Kanhari 

 e.g. at Montpezir, Kanduti, Amboli, &c. It was 

 occupied by the Portuguese early in the 16th 

 century, and was captured by the Mahrattas in 

 1739 and by the British in 1774. 



