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  • Salṭ, Es- (Jordan)
    town, west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway (often called the As-Salṭ Road) leading from Amman to Jerusalem. The town is situated in the Al-Balqāʾ highland, about 2,600–2,750 feet (about 790–840 m) above sea level, and is built on two hills, one of which has the ruins of a 13th-century fortress....
  • salt flat (geological feature)
    a playa, or dried-out desert lake, especially one containing high concentrations of precipitated dry, glistening salts. The term is generally limited to flats in the western United States, the most famous being the Bonneville Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City, where automobile speed records are set....
  • salt gland (anatomy)
    in marine birds and reptiles that drink saltwater, gland that extracts the salt and removes it from the animal’s body. Its function was unknown until 1957, when K. Schmidt-Nielsen and coworkers solved the long-standing problem of how oceanic birds can live without fresh water. They found that a gland, located above each eye, removes sodium chloride from the blood far more efficiently than ...
  • salt glaze (ceramics)
    in ceramics, a glaze having the texture of orange peel, formed on stoneware by throwing common salt into the kiln at the peak temperature. Sodium from the salt combines with silica in the clay to form a glassy coating of sodium silicate. The glaze may be colourless or may be coloured various shades of brown (from iron oxide), blue (from cobalt oxide), or purple (from manganese oxide)....
  • salt grass (plant)
    any of 16 species of grasses constituting the genus Spartina (family Poaceae). The erect, tough, long-leaved plants range from 0.3 to 3 metres (1 to 10 feet) in height and are found on marshes and tidal mud flats of North America, Europe, and Africa....
  • Salt in the Wound (work by Sciascia)
    ...(1950; “Fables of the Dictatorship”), a satire on fascism. He also wrote two early collections of poetry. His first significant novel, Le parrocchie de regalpetra (1956; Salt in the Wound), chronicles the history of a small Sicilian town and the effect of politics on the lives of the townspeople. He further examined what he termed sicilitudine......
  • salt karst (geology)
    solution phenomena occurring in rock salt by the action of groundwater. Although rock salt is considerably more soluble in water than is the calcite that forms karst topography, rock salt is impervious, and solution can take place only on the exterior surfaces. The brine formed by initial solution must be drained off by groundwater before more solution can occur. Salt karst sin...
  • salt lake
    Saline lakes (i.e., bodies of water that have salinities in excess of 3 grams per litre) are widespread and occur on all continents, including Antarctica. Saline lakes include the largest lake in the world, the Caspian Sea; the lowest lake, the Dead Sea; and many of the highest lakes, such as those in Tibet and on the Altiplano of South America. Although inland saline water constitutes......
  • Salt Lake City (Utah, United States)
    state capital and seat (1849) of Salt Lake county, north-central Utah, U.S., on the Jordan River at the southeastern end of Great Salt Lake. The world capital of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), it influences the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the people in a wide area of Utah and bordering region...
  • Salt Lake City Olympics (2002)
    Scandal and fears of terrorism marked the 2002 Games long before the Olympic torch arrived in Salt Lake City. In November 1998 the first allegation of bribery and misuse of funds by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) emerged. Investigations by the U.S. government and the IOC soon revealed that the SLOC had doled out cash gifts, college scholarships, medical treatment, and lavish......
  • Salt Lake Theater (theatre, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States)
    ...is the university’s Health Sciences Center. The University of Utah houses the state’s Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Natural History, and Red Butte Garden (arboretum). The campus has a replica of Salt Lake Theater, built in 1862, a significant early theatre in the American West. The university’s libraries contain almost three million books. Notable among the school’s...
  • salt marsh (geology)
    area of low, flat, poorly drained ground that is subject to daily or occasional flooding by salt water or brackish water and that is covered with a thick mat of grasses and such grasslike plants as sedges and rushes. Salt marshes are common along low seacoasts, inside barrier bars and beaches, in estuaries, and on deltas and are also extensive in deserts and other arid regions that are subject to...
  • salt marsh snake (reptile)
    The salt marsh snake (N. clarkii) lives in the brackish water habitats of the southeastern United States, and adults typically grow to 0.3–0.7 metre (1–2 feet) long. There are three morphologically distinct subspecies: the salt marsh snake (N. clarkii clarkii) of the Gulf Coast region is characterized by light stripes along......
  • salt monopoly (Russian politics)
    ...In order to reduce government expenditures, Morozov dismissed a number of officials and lowered the pay of many others, including the military. He also instituted state monopolies on tobacco and salt, which, in the case of the latter commodity, resulted in the quadrupling of the duty exacted. The salt monopoly proved so unpopular that it was abrogated in 1647, but discontent continued; and,......
  • salt nucleus (meteorology)
    tiny particle in the atmosphere that is composed of a salt, either solid or in an aqueous solution; it promotes the condensation of water and thus is one form of condensation nucleus. ...
  • Salt of the Earth (work by Wittlin)
    The work that ensured Wittlin a place in Polish literature is Sól ziemi (1936; Salt of the Earth). The book is a tale of a “patient infantryman,” an illiterate Polish peasant who is unwillingly drafted into the Austrian army to fight a war he does not understand. The novel treats not war itself but the bewilderment of a man involved in......
  • salt pan (geology)
    flat-bottom depression found in interior desert basins and adjacent to coasts within arid and semiarid regions, periodically covered by water that slowly filtrates into the ground water system or evaporates into the atmosphere, causing the deposition of salt, sand, and mud along the bottom and around the edges of the depression....
  • salt pillow (geology)
    ...the broadest sense, the term includes both the core of salt and the strata that surround and are “domed” by the core. Similar geologic structures in which salt is the main component are salt pillows and salt walls, which are related genetically to salt domes, and salt anticlines, which are essentially folded rocks pierced by upward migrating salt. Other material, such as gypsum an...
  • Salt Range (mountains, Pakistan)
    series of hills and low mountains between the valleys of the Indus and Jhelum rivers, located in the northern part of the Punjab region of Pakistan. It derives its name from extensive deposits of rock salt that form one of the richest salt fields in the world; they are of Precambrian age and range up to more than 1,600 feet (490 m) in thickness. The range is approximately 186 m...
  • salt receptor (physiology)
    ...cell at its base, the blowfly’s labellar hair has dendrites from four or five sensory cells. Each of these makes electrical responses that distinguish the cell as one of at least four types: (1) salt receptor (or cation receptor), once called L fibre because it produces large spikelike patterns of electrical activity on the recording screen; this cell is stimulated by positively charged ...
  • Salt River (river, Arizona, United States)
    tributary of the Gila River, east-central Arizona, U.S. The Salt River is formed at the confluence of the Black and White rivers on a plateau in eastern Gila county. It flows 200 miles (320 km) in a westerly direction and empties into the Gila River 15 miles (24 km) west-southwest of Phoenix. The Salt Ri...
  • Salt River Project (irrigation project, Arizona, United States)
    ...available. To do this, central Arizona agricultural interests developed plans for large water-storage and flood-control systems that included expensive dams and extensive canal systems. The Salt River Project, completed in 1911, delivered water to farmers in the Phoenix area (now the state’s agricultural heartland). Water shortages continued to plague the state, however, and in 1963,......
  • Salt River Valley (valley, Arizona, United States)
    ...Arizona, U.S. It lies along the Salt River in the south-central part of the state, about 120 miles (190 km) north of the Mexico border and midway between El Paso, Texas, and Los Angeles, Calif. The Salt River valley, popularly called the Valley of the Sun, includes not only Phoenix but also nearby cities such as Mesa, Scottsdale, and Tempe. Phoenix plays a prominent role in the economy of the.....
  • Salt Rock (physical feature, Egypt)
    ...from the Prophet Muḥammad. The area is notable for its abundance of Neolithic rock carvings dating from 7000 to 5000 bc. North of Djelfa town there is an imposing physical feature known as Salt Rock (Rocher de Sel) that resulted from the erosion of rock salts and marls by rain, and to the west of the town Megalithic funerary structures are found. Pop. (1998) 154,265....
  • Salt Route (Roman road)
    Salt contributes greatly to our knowledge of the ancient highways of commerce. One of the oldest roads in Italy is the Via Salaria (Salt Route) over which Roman salt from Ostia was carried into other parts of Italy. Herodotus tells of a caravan route that united the salt oases of the Libyan Desert. The ancient trade between the Aegean and the Black Sea coast of southern Russia was largely......
  • Salt Sea (lake, Asia)
    landlocked salt lake between Israel and Jordan, which lies some 1,300 feet (400 metres) below sea level—the lowest elevation and the lowest body of water on the surface of the Earth. Its eastern shore belongs to Jordan, and the southern half of its western shore belongs to Israel. The northern half of the western shore lies within the Palestinian ...
  • Salt, Sir Titus (British industrialist)
    ...near Bradford in Airedale, in what is now Bradford metropolitan borough, metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England. It was created in 1853 by the industrialist Sir Titus Salt, a manufacturer of alpaca wool fabrics, as a model village for his employees. The community, named for its founder (Salt) and the nearby river (Aire), was built beside large woolen......
  • salt stock (foodstuff)
    ...8 to 10 percent during the first week and is increased 1 percent a week thereafter until the solution reaches 16 percent. Under properly controlled conditions the salted, fermented cucumber, called salt stock, may be held for several years....
  • salt swamp (wetland)
    Salt swamps are formed by seawater flooding and draining, which exposes flat areas of intertidal land. Regularly flooded, protected areas develop mangrove swamps in tropical and subtropical regions. Mangroves will grow in pure sand at the edge of the sea. Extensive swamps develop mainly where land runoff is sufficient to bring a supply of sediments that accumulate and extend the swamp. The......
  • Salt, Waldo (American screenwriter)
    Original Screenplay: William Goldman for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidAdapted Screenplay: Waldo Salt for Midnight CowboyCinematography: Conrad Hall for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidArt Direction: Herman Blumenthal, John DeCuir and, Jack Martin Smith for Hello,......
  • salt wall (geology)
    ...the term includes both the core of salt and the strata that surround and are “domed” by the core. Similar geologic structures in which salt is the main component are salt pillows and salt walls, which are related genetically to salt domes, and salt anticlines, which are essentially folded rocks pierced by upward migrating salt. Other material, such as gypsum and shale, form the......
  • salt water
    water that makes up the oceans and seas, covering more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. Seawater is a complex mixture of 96.5 percent water, 2.5 percent salts, and smaller amounts of other substances, including dissolved inorganic and organic materials, particulates, and a few atmospheric gases....
  • salt wedge estuary (oceanography)
    A salt wedge estuary has minimal mixing and the salt water forms a wedge, thickest at the seaward end, tapering to a very thin layer at the landward limit (Figure 1). The penetration of this wedge changes with the flow of the river. During flood conditions the wedge will retreat; during low flows it will extend farther upriver. The mouth of the Mississippi River in the United States is a......
  • salt well (mining)
    ...stock in the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, which gathered oil from ground-level seepages at Titusville, Pa., for medicinal uses. In Titusville on business, Drake studied the techniques of drilling salt wells. With the encouragement of George H. Bissell, a local landowner who was aware of the younger Benjamin Silliman’s report of the potential value of petroleum, Drake persuaded the comp...
  • salt-marsh harvest mouse (rodent)
    ...sea level to above the timberline in the northern Andes Mountains. They live in prairies, grassy fields with shrubs or trees, meadows, temperate and tropical forests, and cultivated fields. One, the salt-marsh harvest mouse (R. raviventris), lives only in the tidal salt marshes surrounding San Francisco Bay in California and is listed as an endangered species under federal and......
  • Salt-Water Ballads (work by Masefield)
    poet, best known for his poems of the sea, Salt-Water Ballads (1902, including “Sea Fever” and “Cargoes”), and for his long narrative poems, such as The Everlasting Mercy (1911), which shocked literary orthodoxy with its phrases of a colloquial coarseness hitherto unknown in 20th-century English verse....
  • Salta (province, Argentina)
    provincia (province), northwestern Argentina. It is bounded to the southwest by Chile, to the north by Bolivia, and to the northeast by Paraguay. The provincial capital is Salta city. In the southwestern part of the province, high Andean cordilleras, separated by broad 11,500-foot- (3,500-metre-) high salt flats (the ...
  • Salta (Argentina)
    city, capital of Salta provincia (province), northwestern Argentina. It lies in the irrigated Andean valley of Lerma, on a headstream of the Salado River. It was founded in 1582 as San Felipe de Lerma by Hernando de Lerma, governor of Tucumán. The Spanish royal forces were defeated at Salta (1813) during the Argen...
  • Saltaire (England, United Kingdom)
    early planned industrial settlement near Bradford in Airedale, in what is now Bradford metropolitan borough, metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England. It was created in 1853 by the industrialist Sir Titus Salt, a manufacturer of alpaca wool fabrics, as a model village for his employees. The community, named for its founder (Salt) and the nearb...
  • saltarello (dance)
    medieval and Renaissance court dance and a folk dance of present-day Rome. In the 14th century the saltarello followed the estampie as an afterdance; a few examples survive in manuscript. In the 15th century it followed the basse danse and was sometimes called paso de brabante. It was light and gay and, like the 14th-century dance, was in triple metre ...
  • Saltash (England, United Kingdom)
    town (“parish”), Caradon district, administrative and historic county of Cornwall, England. It lies near the English Channel coast, on the west shore of the Tamar estuary, on the opposite side of which lies Plymouth. Saltash is connected to Plymouth by the Royal Albert Bridge (completed 1859), which was the last railway bridge ...
  • saltation (sediment transport process)
    Most of the sand carried by the wind moves as a mass of jumping (saltating) grains; coarser particles move slowly along the surface as creep and are kept in motion partly by the bombardment of the saltating grains. Saltating sand bounces more easily off hard surfaces than off soft ones, with the result that more sand can be moved over a pebbly desert surface than over a smooth or soft one.......
  • saltation (form of locomotion)
    The locomotor pattern of saltation (hopping) is confined mainly to kangaroos, anurans (tailless amphibians), rabbits, and some groups of rodents in the vertebrates and to a number of insect families in the arthropods. All saltatory animals have hind legs that are approximately twice as long as the anteriormost legs. Although all segments of the hind leg are elongated, two of them—the......
  • saltatory conduction (biochemistry)
    ...of ion channels, which, upon stimulation, propagate the nerve impulse to the next node. In this manner the action potential jumps quickly from node to node along the fibre in a process called saltatory conduction (from Latin saltare, “to jump”; see the figure)....
  • saltbox (architecture)
    in architecture, type of residential building popular in colonial New England, having two stories in front and a single story in the rear and a double-sloped roof that is longer over the rear section.The original clapboard houses of the New England settlers were constructed around a great central chimney. On the first floor were two large rooms, the hall and the parlour. Upstairs were bedrooms....
  • saltbush (plant)
    ...migration corridors for salt-tolerant plants, and in some cases the drifting of buoyant seeds in ocean currents can provide a transport mechanism between coasts. For example, it is thought that the saltbush or chenopod family of plants reached Australia in this way, initially colonizing coastal habitats and later spreading into the inland deserts....
  • saltcellar
    receptacle for table salt, usually made of metal or glass. Salt was taken from it with small spoons. From the Middle Ages until at least the 16th century, salt was a relatively expensive commodity and was kept at the table in vessels commensurate with this status. A large and elaborate standing saltcellar, frequently made of silver, was the centrepiece of the medieval and Renaissance table. Mediev...
  • Salten, Felix (Austrian novelist)
    Austrian novelist and journalist, author of the children’s classic and adult allegory Bambi, a sensitively told subjective story of the life of a wild deer....
  • Salticidae (arachnid)
    any of about 3,000 species of spiders (order Araneida) known for their ability to jump and pounce upon their prey. They range in size from 3 to 17 mm (0.12 to 0.67 inch), although most are small to medium-sized. They are very common in the tropics, but many also live in northern and even Arctic regions. The hairy body is often brightly coloured or strikingly patterned. Jumping spiders have keen vi...
  • Saltillo (Mexico)
    city, capital of Coahuila estado (state), northeastern Mexico. It is located between Monterrey (east) and Torreón (west). Lying in a wide valley at the northern edge of the great Mesa Central, at an elevation of about 5,500 feet (1,700 metres), the city has ...
  • salting (labour organizing tactic)
    organizing tactic employed by labour unions. To start the process, a union targets a nonunionized company and encourages some of its members to seek employment there. Once these “salts” have been hired, they initiate efforts to organize nonunion workers from within the company. It is the union’s goal to have workers of the targeted company vote for represent...
  • salting out (chemical process)
    To separate the glycerin from the soap, the pasty boiling mass is treated with brine. Contents of the kettle salt out, or separate, into an upper layer that is a curdy mass of impure soap and a lower layer that consists of an aqueous salt solution with the glycerin dissolved in it. Thus the basis of glycerin removal is the solubility of glycerin and the insolubility of soap in salt solution.......
  • salting-out effect (chemistry)
    The concept of solvation is often used to explain properties of aqueous solutions; one well-known property is the salting-out effect, in which the solubility of a nonelectrolyte in water is decreased when electrolyte is added. For example, the solubility of ethyl ether in water at 25° C is 0.91 mole percent, but, in an aqueous solution containing 15 weight percent sodium chloride, it is......
  • saltire (heraldry)
    ...If their number exceeds 10 and they are irregularly placed, the field is described as billetté. The pall, or shakefork, is the upper half of a saltire (St. Andrew’s cross) with the lower half of a pale, forming a Y-shape. The pile is a triangle pointing downward. The flaunch, or flanch, is a...
  • saltlike compound (chemistry)
    Ionic, or saltlike, amides are strongly alkaline compounds ordinarily made by treating ammonia, an amine, or a covalent amide with a reactive metal such as sodium....
  • Salto (Uruguay)
    city, northwestern Uruguay. It is situated on the left bank of the Uruguay River across from Concordia, Arg. Now Uruguay’s second largest city (after Montevideo), Salto is the terminus for the shallow-draft vessels that ply the Uruguay River. Its port supplies northwestern Uruguay and parts of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Wine production and orange-drink bott...
  • Salto de Tequendama (falls, Colombia)
    waterfalls on the Bogotá (Funza) River, which is a tributary of the Magdalena River, in the Andean Cordillera (mountains) Oriental, central Colombia. One of the country’s major tourist attractions, the falls are located in a forested area 20 miles (32 km) west of Bogotá. The river surges through a rocky gorge that narrows to about 60 feet (18 m) at the brink of the 515-foot- (...
  • Salto del Guairá (Paraguay)
    town, eastern Paraguay. It is situated on the right bank of the Paraná River at the Brazil–Paraguay border. Salto del Guairá is the site of one of the earliest colonial settlements in Paraguay, Ciudad Real, which was established in 1556 by Rui Díaz de Melgarejo. The original settlement was abandoned in the 17th century. The modern town is linked by b...
  • Salton Basin (desert basin, United States-Mexico)
    The northern half of the province is called the Great Basin (q.v.). The Sonoran Desert (q.v.) section extends into Sonora, Mexico, while the Salton Trough extends to the Gulf of California; the Salton Trough is a concave desert basin that descends to 235 feet (72 m) below sea level at the Salton Sea. East of the Sonoran Desert and extending southward from the Colorado......
  • Salton Sea (lake, California, United States)
    saline lake, in the lower Colorado Desert, southern California, U.S. The area that is now the lake was formerly a salt-covered sink or depression (a remnant of prehistoric Lake Cahuilla) about 280 feet (85 metres) below sea level until 1905–06, when diversion controls on the Colorado River broke a few miles below the California-Mexico...
  • Salton Trough (desert basin, United States-Mexico)
    The northern half of the province is called the Great Basin (q.v.). The Sonoran Desert (q.v.) section extends into Sonora, Mexico, while the Salton Trough extends to the Gulf of California; the Salton Trough is a concave desert basin that descends to 235 feet (72 m) below sea level at the Salton Sea. East of the Sonoran Desert and extending southward from the Colorado......
  • Saltonstall, Sir Richard (American colonist)
    city, Middlesex county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., on the Charles River, just west of Boston. One of the four earliest Massachusetts Bay settlements, it was founded by a group led by Sir Richard Saltonstall and was incorporated as a town in 1630; it was the first inland farming town. Its name may have derived from the fact that the area was well watered and abounded with fish. Construction of......
  • saltpeter (chemical compound)
    any of three naturally occurring nitrates, distinguished as (1) ordinary saltpetre, or potassium nitrate, KNO3; (2) Chile saltpetre, cubic nitre, or sodium nitrate, NaNO3; and (3) lime saltpetre, wall saltpetre, or calcium nitrate, Ca(NO3)2. These three nitrates generally occur as efflorescences caused by the oxidati...
  • saltpetre (chemical compound)
    any of three naturally occurring nitrates, distinguished as (1) ordinary saltpetre, or potassium nitrate, KNO3; (2) Chile saltpetre, cubic nitre, or sodium nitrate, NaNO3; and (3) lime saltpetre, wall saltpetre, or calcium nitrate, Ca(NO3)2. These three nitrates generally occur as efflorescences caused by the oxidati...
  • Saltsjöbaden Agreement (Swedish history)
    ...policy, social equality, and institutionalized autonomy for responsible, centralized, and comprehensive collective bargaining. In 1938, the peak associations of business and labour concluded the Saltsjöbaden Agreement, in which, while affirming the rights of unions to strike and of employers to lock out in retaliation, they pledged to use these measures only as a last resort and in......
  • Saltsjön (bay, Sweden)
    ...
  • Saltstraumen (marine channel, Norway)
    ...Church and the Bodø Cathedral (Lutheran), a modern edifice (consecrated 1956). About 20 miles (30 km) from the town, at the southern side of Salt Fjord, is the narrow marine channel known as Saltstraumen, famous for its strong tidal current and its whirlpools, which rival those of the Maelstrom, to the northwest. Bodø’s far northern site enables the midnight sun to be seen ...
  • Saltuqid (people)
    ...central regions, the earliest settlements were those of the Mangūjakids, who came to exercise control over Divriği (Tephrike), Erzincan (Keltzine), and Kemah (Camcha) until 1252; the Saltuqids, who ruled in Erzurum (Theodosiopolis) until 1201; and, most importantly, the Dānishmendids, who were centred in Sivas, Kayseri (Caesarea Cappadociae), and Amasya (Amaseia) until......
  • Saltus (Jordan)
    town, west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway (often called the As-Salṭ Road) leading from Amman to Jerusalem. The town is situated in the Al-Balqāʾ highland, about 2,600–2,750 feet (about 790–840 m) above sea level, and is built on two hills, one of which has the ruins of a 13th-century fortress....
  • Saltus, Edgar Evertson (American novelist)
    one of the few U.S. novelists who adopted the sophisticated cynicism, art-for-art’s-sake credo, and other mannerisms of the European school of Decadents. In his time his novels were popular for their wit and for their shocking, erotic incidents....
  • saltwater
    water that makes up the oceans and seas, covering more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. Seawater is a complex mixture of 96.5 percent water, 2.5 percent salts, and smaller amounts of other substances, including dissolved inorganic and organic materials, particulates, and a few atmospheric gases....
  • saltwater crocodile (reptile)
    Crocodiles are the largest and the heaviest of present-day reptiles. The largest representatives, the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) of Africa and the estuarine (or saltwater) crocodile (C. porosus) of Australia, attain lengths of up to 6 metres (20 feet) and weigh over 1,000 kg (about 2,200 pounds). Some fossil forms (such as Deinosuchus and ......
  • Saltwater Farm (work by Coffin)
    ...he expanded the particulars of his youth in Maine in order to describe experiences that would be universal to Americans. Strange Holiness (1935) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1936; Saltwater Farm (1937) is a collection of poems about Maine....
  • saltwater fishing
    The methods mentioned so far are all used in saltwater fishing also, fly fishing being perhaps the least used, although it has become increasingly popular in the second half of the 20th century. Fishing for saltwater fish is done from a beach, off rocks, from a pier, or from a boat, which may vary in size from a rowboat, used in inland waters, to ocean-going craft of considerable size. Fish......
  • saltwater lake
    Saline lakes (i.e., bodies of water that have salinities in excess of 3 grams per litre) are widespread and occur on all continents, including Antarctica. Saline lakes include the largest lake in the world, the Caspian Sea; the lowest lake, the Dead Sea; and many of the highest lakes, such as those in Tibet and on the Altiplano of South America. Although inland saline water constitutes......
  • saltwater pearl
    ...of both saltwater oysters and freshwater clams) are really fine pearls; pearls from other mollusks are reddish or whitish, porcellaneous, or lacking in pearly lustre. Jewelers commonly refer to saltwater pearls as Oriental pearls and to those produced by freshwater mollusks as freshwater pearls....
  • saltwater terrapin (turtle)
    a term formerly used to refer to any aquatic turtle but now restricted largely, though not exclusively, to the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) of the turtle family Emydidae. Until the last third of the 20th century, the word terrapin was used commonly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries as well as the United States....
  • saltwort family (plant family)
    Bataceae, Salvadoraceae, and Koeberliniaceae have in common ultrastructural features, the same base chromosome number, and flowers that lack a nectary and have only two carpels. They, and many other Brassicales, have a curved embryo....
  • Saltykov, Mikhail Yevgrafovich, Graf (Russian author)
    novelist of radical sympathies and one of greatest of all Russian satirists....
  • Saluda (county, South Carolina, United States)
    county, west-central South Carolina, U.S. The Saluda River and Lake Murray provide the northern boundary, and the western corner lies within Sumter National Forest. The county consists of a piedmont region of low hills, with large areas forested in pine woods....
  • Saluda (people)
    In the late 17th and early 18th centuries the region was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking Saluda Indians; by the mid-18th century European settlers were well established there. Saluda county was formed in 1896....
  • Saluda River (river, South Carolina, United States)
    river rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains, west-central South Carolina, U.S., in North and South forks, which join 10 miles (15 km) northwest of Greenville. The main stream flows southeastward past Pelzer and, after a course of approximately 145 miles (235 km), joins the Broad River at Columbia to form th...
  • saluki (breed of dog)
    breed of hound whose ancestors may date to 7000 to 6000 bce. Sacred to the Egyptians, who called it the “royal dog of Egypt,” the saluki was used to hunt gazelles. Graceful, keen-sighted, and generally hardy, it is a slender, greyhoundlike dog with long ears and a silky coat; in one variety the hair is longer on the ears, legs, and tail. Colours inclu...
  • Salus (Roman goddess)
    in Roman religion, the goddess of safety and welfare, later identified with the Greek Hygieia. Her temple on the Quirinal at Rome, dedicated in 302 bc, was the scene of an annual sacrifice on August 5....
  • Salusbury, Hester Lynch (English writer)
    English writer and friend of Samuel Johnson....
  • Salut, Îles du (islands, French Guiana)
    island group of French Guiana, northeastern South America, in the Atlantic Ocean about 8 mi (13 km) northeast of Kourou, comprising three main islands: Royale, Saint-Joseph, and Diable, the site of the infamous “Devil’s Island” penal colony from 1852 to 1953 (see ). Originally the entire group was called the Îles du Diable by their earliest known settlers, a grou...
  • Salutati, Coluccio (Florentine chancellor)
    Humanist and Florentine chancellor....
  • Salutati, Lino Coluccio di Piero (Florentine chancellor)
    Humanist and Florentine chancellor....
  • Salutation Hotel (building, Perth, Scotland, United Kingdom)
    ...and replaced an earlier church on the site. There in 1559 John Knox preached an inflammatory sermon denouncing idolatry, as a result of which four monasteries in Perth were destroyed by mobs. The Salutation Hotel, built in 1699, is said to be the oldest hotel building in Scotland. The city’s notable modern public buildings include St. Ninian’s Episcopal Cathedral (1850–90) ...
  • Sāluva dynasty (Indian history)
    ...lasted until about 1485, when—at a time of pressure from the Bahmanī sultan and the raja of Orissa—Narasiṃha of the Sāluva family usurped power. By 1503 the Sāluva dynasty had been supplanted by the Tuluva dynasty. The outstanding Tuluva king was Kṛṣṇa Deva Rāya. During his reign (1509–29) the land between the......
  • Saluzzo (Italy)
    town and episcopal see, Piemonte (Piedmont) region, northwestern Italy, at the foot of the Alps, southwest of Turin. The seat of the marquesses of Saluzzo from 1142 to 1548, it then passed to France until it was ceded to Savoy in 1601. Notable buildings include the restored 13th-century castle of the marquesses, the cathedral (1491–1501), the 13th–15th-century chur...
  • Salvador (Brazil)
    city, major port and capital (since 1889) of Bahia estado (state), northeastern Brazil. The country’s third largest city, it is situated at the southern tip of a picturesque and bluff-formed peninsula that separates Todos os Santos (All Saints) Bay, a deep natural harbour, ...
  • Salvador, Catedral del (cathedral, Zaragoza, Spain)
    The seat of an archbishop, Zaragoza has two cathedrals. The older is the Cathedral of La Seo, or Cathedral of Salvador, chiefly a Gothic building (1119–1520) but showing some traces of the earlier Romanesque church built on the site of the first mosque erected in Spain. The Nuestra Señora del Pilar Cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin of the Pillar, who is the patron of Spain,......
  • Salvador, El
    country of Central America. El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated of the seven Central American countries. Despite having little level land, it traditionally was an agricultural country, heavily dependent upon coffee exports. By the end of the 20th century, however, the service sector had come to dominate the economy. The capital is San Salvador...
  • Salvador, Henri Gabriel (French entertainer)
    French entertainer who enjoyed a lengthy career as a singer and songwriter, with a musical range that included French chansons, jazz, novelty songs, and children’s songs. In the 1930s Salvador played guitar with jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, and during World War II he toured in South America with bandleader Ray Ventura, which brought a South American influence into his work. In 1947 Salv...
  • Salvadora persica (plant)
    ...flowers have the same number of sepals, petals, and stamens, and there are sometimes nectar glands alternating with the stamens. The fruit is fleshy, containing either seeds or a stone. Twigs of Salvadora persica, a species that grows from Africa to India, make a bristly chewing stick, and the plant has valuable antiseptic properties that make it useful in toothpastes. The foliage can be...
  • Salvadoraceae (plant family)
    Bataceae, Salvadoraceae, and Koeberliniaceae have in common ultrastructural features, the same base chromosome number, and flowers that lack a nectary and have only two carpels. They, and many other Brassicales, have a curved embryo....
  • salvage (maritime law)
    in maritime law, the rescue of a ship or its cargo on navigable waters from a peril that, except for the rescuer’s assistance, would have led to the loss or destruction of the property. Under some jurisdictions, aircraft may also be salved. Except for salvage performed under contract, the rescuer—known as the salvor—must act voluntarily without being under ...
  • salvage clause
    ...losses after a bond is discontinued. When a new bond is put into effect, it can be written to cover losses that have occurred but are undiscovered before the effective issue date of the bond. A salvage clause also is included, stating the way in which any salvage recovered by the surety from the principal is to be divided between the surety and the obligee. This clause is significant,......
  • Salvage Islands (islands, Portugal)
    archipelago of volcanic origin in the North Atlantic Ocean, belonging to Portugal and comprising two inhabited islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, and two uninhabited groups, the Desertas and the Selvagens. The islands are the summits of mountains that have their bases on an abyssal ocean floor. Administratively they form the autonomous region of Madeira. The islands have a combined land area of......
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