Tormes been evacuated by its Spanish garrison without Wellington's
knowledge.
Salamanca was a brilliant victory, and followed as it was by the capture of Madrid, it severely shook the French domination in Spain. (C. W. R.)
SALAMANCA, a village in Cattaraugus county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Salamanca, about 52 m. S. by E. of Buffalo. Pop. (1900), 4251, of whom 789 were foreign-born; (1910, census), 5792. Salamanca is served by the Erie, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg and the Pennsylvania railways, and by interurban electric lines connecting with Olean, N. Y., Bradford, Pennsylvania, and Little Valley (pop in 1910, 1368), the county-seat, about 8 m. N. The village is built on both sides of the Allegany river. The agricultural and industrial development of the region has been retarded by its being within the Allegany Indian Reservation (allotted originally to the Seneca Indians by the Big Tree Treaty of 1798 and still including the valley of the Allegany river for several miles above and below Salamanca); but land is now held under a 99 year lease authorized by Congress in 1892. The village is a railway centre and division terminal, and has repair shops of the Erie and the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg railways. The first settlement in the district (which was included within the "Holland Purchase" of 1792–1793) was made in 1815 near the site of West Salamanca (pop. in 1910, 530), 112 m. W. of Salamanca, and in the same township. Salamanca (until 1873 known as East Salamanca) was incorporated in 1879, taking its name from the township, which was erected in 1854 as Buck Tooth Township and in 1862 was renamed in honour of a Spanish banker who was a large stockholder of the Atlantic & Great Western railway, built through the township this year, and later merged with the Erie railway.
See History of Cattaraugus County, New York (Philadelphia, Pa., 1879).
SALAMANDER. Salamanders in the restricted sense (genus
Salamandra of N. Laurenti) are close allies of the newts, but of
exclusively terrestrial habits, indicated by the shape of the tail,
which is not distinctly compressed. The genus is restricted in
its habitat to the western parts of the Palaearctic region and
represented by four species only: the spotted salamander,
S. maculosa, the well-known black and yellow creature inhabiting
Central and Southern Europe, North-West Africa and South-Western
Asia; the black salamander, S. atra, restricted to the
Alps; S. caucasica from the Caucasus, and S. luschani from
Asia Minor. Salamanders, far from being able to withstand the
action of fire, as was believed by the ancients, are only found
in damp places, and emerge in misty weather only or after
thunderstorms, when they may appear in enormous numbers
in localities where at other times their presence would not be
suspected. They are usually much dreaded by country people,
and although they are quite harmless to man, the large glands
which are disposed very regularly on their smooth, shiny bodies,
secrete a very active, milky poison which protects them from
the attacks of many enemies.
The breeding habits of the two well-known European species are highly interesting. They pair on land, the male clasping the female at the arms, and the impregnation is internal. Long after pairing the female gives birth to living young. S. maculosa, which lives in plains or at low altitudes (up to 3000 ft.), deposits her young, ten to fifty in number, in the water, in springs or cool rivulets, and these young at birth are of small size, provided with external gills and four limbs, in every way similar to advanced newt larvae. S. atra, on the other hand, inhabits the Alps between 2000 and 9000 ft. altitude. Localities at such altitudes not being, as a rule, suitable for larval life in the water, the young are retained in the uterus, until the completion of the metamorphosis. Only two young, rarely three or four, are born, and they may measure as much as 50 mm. at birth, the mother measuring only 120. The uterine eggs are large and numerous, as in S. maculosa, but as a rule only one fully develops in each uterus, the embryo being nourished on the yolk of the other eggs, which more or less dissolve to form a large mass of nutrient matter. The embryo passes through three stages — (1) still enclosed within the egg and living on its own yolk; (2) free, within the vitelline mass, which is directly swallowed by the mouth; (3) there is no more vitelline mass, but the embryo is possessed of long external gills, which serve for an exchange of nutritive fluid through the maternal uterus, these gills functioning in the same way as the chorionic villi of the mammalian egg. Embryos in the second stage, if artificially released from the uterus, are able to live in water, in the same way as similarly developed larvae of S. maculosa. But the uterine gills soon wither and are shed, and are replaced by other gills differing in no respect from those of its congener.
Authorities. — Marie von Chauvin, Zeitschr. Wiss. Zool. xxix. (1877), p. 324; P. Kammerer, Arch. f. Entwickel. xvii. (1904), p. 1; Mme. Phisalix-Picot, Recherches embryologiques, histologiques et physiologiques sur les glandes à venin de la salamandre terrestre (Paris, 1900, 8vo).
SALAMIS, an island of Greece in the Saronic Gulf of the
Aegean Sea, extending along the coasts of Attica and Megaris,
and enclosing the Bay of Eleusis between two narrow straits
on the W. and S. Its area is 36 sq. m., its greatest length in
any direction 10 m.; its extremely irregular shape gives rise
to the modern popular name Κουλλοῦρι, i.e. baker’s crescent.
In Homer Salamis was the home of the Aeginetan prince Telamon
and his sons Ajax and Teucer, and this tradition is confirmed
by the position of the ancient capital of the island opposite
Aegina. It subsequently passed into the hands of the Megarians,
but was wrested from them about 600 B.C. by the Athenians
under Solon (q.v.) and definitely awarded to Athens by Sparta's
arbitration. Though Attic tradition claimed Salamis as an ancient
possession the island was not strictly Athenian territory; a
6th-century inscription shows that it was treated either as a
cleruchy or as a privileged foreign dependency. The town of
Salamis was removed to an inlet of the E. coast opposite Attica.
In 480 Salamis became the base of the allied Greek fleet after
the retreat from Artemisium, while the Persians took their
station along the Attic coast off Phalerum. Through the stratagem
of the Athenian Themistocles the Greeks were enclosed in the
straits by the enemy, who had wheeled by night across the
entrance of the E. channel and detached a squadron to block
the W. outlet. The Greeks had thus no resource but to fight,
while the Persians could not utilize their superior numbers, and
as they advanced into the narrow neck of the east strait were
thrown into confusion. The allies, among whom the Athenians
and Aeginetans were conspicuous, seized this opportunity to
make a vigorous attack which probably broke the enemy's
line. After waging a losing fight for several hours the Persians
retreated with the loss of 200 sail and of an entire corps landed
on the islet of Psyttaleia in the channel; the Greeks lost only
40 ships out of more than 300. During the Peloponnesian War
Salamis served as a repository for the country stock of Attica.
About 350 Salamis obtained the right of issuing copper coins.
In 318 Cassander placed in it a Macedonian garrison which was
finally withdrawn through the advocacy of the Achaean statesman
Aratus (232). The Athenians thereupon supplanted
the inhabitants by a cleruchy of their own citizens. By the
2nd century A.D. the settlement had fallen into decay. In
modern times Salamis, which is chiefly peopled by Albanians,
has regained importance through the transference of the
naval arsenal to Ambelaki near the site of the ancient capital.
Excavations in this region have revealed large numbers of
late Mycenaean tombs.
Authorities.—Strabo pp. 383, 393-394; Pausanias i. 35-36; Plutarch, Solon, 8-10; Aeschylus, Persae, 337-471 ; Herodotus viii. 40-95; Diodorus xi. 15-19; Plutarch, Themistocles, 11-15; W. Goodwin, Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, I. p. 237 ff. (Boston, 1885); G. B. Grundy, Great Persian War (London, 1901), ch. ix.; B. V. Head, Historia numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 328-329; A. Wilhelm in Athenische Mitteilungen (1898), pp. 466-486; W. Judeich, ibid. (1899), pp. 321-338; C. Horner. Quaestiones Salaminiae (Basle, 1901); H. Raase, Die Schlacht bei Salamis (Rostock, 1904); R. W. Macan, Appendix to Herodotus vii.-ix. (London, 1908); J. Beloch in Klio (1908). (M. O. B. C.)
SALAMIS, the principal city of ancient Cyprus, situated on
the east coast a little north of the river Pedias (Pediaeus). It
had a good harbour, well situated for commerce with Phoenicia,
Egypt and Cilicia, which was replaced in medieval times by
Famagusta (Ammochostos), and is wholly silted now. Its trade
was mainly in corn, wine and oil from the midland plain
(Mesaoria), and in salt from the neighbouring lagoons. Traditionally,
Salamis was founded after the Trojan War (c. 1180 B.C.)
by Teucer from Salamis, the island off Attica, but there was an
important Mycenaean colony somewhat earlier. The spoils
of its tombs excavated in 1896 are in the British Museum.
