Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/261

S A L S A M 241 and energetically opposed the Protestant Reformation. Under Wolfgang Dietrich many Protestant citizens were driven from the town and their houses demolished. In spite, however, of rigorous persecution the new faith spread in secret, especially among the landward subjects of the archbishop, and a new and more searching edict of expulsion was issued by Arch- bishop Von Finnian in 1727. The Protestants invoked the aid of Frederick William I. of Prussia, who procured for them permission to sell their goods and to emigrate ; and in 1731 and 1732 Salzburg parted to Prussia with about 30,000 industrious and peaceful citizens. About 6000 of these came from the capital. By the peace of Luneville Salzburg was given to the archduke of Austria and grand-duke of Tuscany in exchange for Tuscany ; and its new owner was enrolled among the electoral princes. In the re- distribution following the peace of Pressburg in 1805, Salzburg fell to Austria. Four years later it passed to Bavaria, but the peace of Paris in 1814 restored it to Austria, to which it has since belonged. Under the designation of a duchy the territory formed the depart- ment of Salzach in Upper Austria until 1849, when it was made a separate crown-land, with the four departments of Salzburg, Zell, Tamsweg, and St Johann. In 1861 the management of its affairs was entrusted to a local diet, consisting of the governor, the arch- bishop, and twenty-five representatives. The area of the duchy is 2762 square miles and the population in 1880 was 163,570, almost exclusively Roman Catholic and of German stock. (F. MU. ) SALZKAMMERGUT, a district in the south-west angle of Upper Austria, between Salzburg and Styria, famous for its fine scenery, forms a separate imperial domain about 250 square miles in area, and with a population of over 18,000. The beauty of its lofty mountains, sequestered lakes, and green valleys has made it one of the favourite tourist resorts of Europe, and has gained for it the title of the "Austrian Switzerland"; but it owes its name (literally "salt-exchequer property") and its economic importance to its extensive and valuable salt mines. The chief lakes are the Traunsee or Lake of Gmunden, the Lake of Hallstatt, the Attersee or Kam- mersee (the largest lake in Austria), the Mondsee, and the St Wolfgang Lake. The principal mountains are the Dachstein (9849 feet), Thorstein (9659 feet), the Todte Gebirge with the summits of Priel (8238 feet) and others, and the Hollengebirge (6371 feet). The Schafberg (5840 feet) or "Austrian Rigi" and the Traunstein (5548 feet), isolated peaks among the lakes, are well-known tourist points. In the very heart of the salt-yielding district lies the fashionable spa of Ischl ; but the capital of the Salzkammergut is Gmunden, situated on the Traunsee at the exit of the Traun, the chief river of the district. Cattle-rearing and forestry are carried on to a certain extent by the people, but between 6000 and 7000 of them are engaged in the salt-mines and evaporating works, which yield annually about 60,000 tons of salt. The sale of the salt is an Austrian crown-monopoly. The most important salt-works are at Ischl, Hallstatt, Ebensee, and Aussee. See SALT. SALZWEDEL, an ancient town of Prussian Saxony, lies on the Jeetze, a tributary of the Elbe, 32 miles to the north-west of Stendal. It is an industrial place of some importance, with linen, cotton, and woollen manufactures, carries on a brisk river trade in grain, and possesses a fine Gothic church of the 13th century. But its chief claim to notice lies in the fact that it was for about a century (c. 1070-1170) the capital of the Old or North Mark (also for a time called the "Mark of Soltwedel"), the kernel of the Prussian state. The old castle, perhaps founded by Charlemagne, was purchased in 1864 by the king of Prussia, anxious to preserve this interesting relic. Salzwedel was also a member of the Hanseatic League, and at the beginning of the 16th century seems to have engrossed great part of the inland commerce of North German y. The population in 1880 was 8780. SAMANID DYNASTY, the name of the third among those native dynasties which sprang up in the 9th and 10th centuries in the eastern portions of Persia, and, although nominally provincial governors under the suzerainty of the caliphs of Baghdad, succeeded in a very short time in estab- lishing an almost independent rule over the vast territories round the Oxus and Jaxartes. The Ma'mun, Hariin-al- rashld's son, to whose patronage the Tahirid family owed their supremacy in Khorasan and Transoxiana (820-872, 205-259 A.H.) appointed three sons of Saman, originally a Tartar chief who claimed descent from the old Sdsanian kings, governors of Herdt and some districts beyond the Oxus ; and these soon gained such an ascendency over all rival clanships that in 872, when the Tahirids were over- thrown by the Saffarids under the leadership of Ya'kub b. Laith (868-878), they were strong enough to retain in their family the governorship of Transoxiana, with the official sanction of the caliph Mo'tamid (870-892), and to establish a semi-royal court in Bokhara, the seat of the new Sdmdnid government. During the reign of Ya'kub's brother 'Amr b. Laith (878-900) Isma'il b. Ahmad, Saman's great-grandson (892-907, 279-295 A.H.), crossed the Oxus with a powerful army, invaded the territory of the Saffarids, sent 'Amr as prisoner to Baghdad, and gradually extended his rule over Khorasan, Khwarizm, Jurjdn, and the neigh- bouring countries. His successors, all renowned by the high impulse they gave both to the patriotic feelings and the national poetry of modern Persia (see PERSIA, vol. xviii. p. 655 sq.), were Ahmad b. Isma'il (907-913, 295-301 A.H.) ; Nasr II. b. Ahmad, the patron and friend of the great poet'Rudagi (913-942, 301-331 A.H.); Nuh I. b. Nasr (942-954, 331-343 A.H.); 'Abd al-Malik I. b. Nuh (954-961, 343-350 A.H.); Mansur I. b. Nuh, whose vizier Barami translated Tabarl's universal history into Persian (961-976, 350-366 A.H.); Nuh II. b. Mansur, whose court-poet Dakiki commenced the Shdhndma (976-997, 366-387 A.H.); Mansur II. b. Nuh (997-998, 387-389 A.H.); and 'Abd al-Malik II. b. Nuh (999), with whom the Samanid dynasty came to a rather abrupt end. The rulers of this powerful house, whose silver dirhems had an extensive currency during the 10th century all over the northern part of Asia, and were brought, through Eus- sian caravans, even so far as to Pomerania, Sweden, and Norway, where Samanid coins have lately been found in great number, suffered in their turn the fate they had pre- pared for their predecessors ; they were overthrown by a more youthful and vigorous race, that of Sabuktagln, which founded the illustrious Ghaznawid dynasty and the Mussul- man empire of India. Under 'Abd al-Malik I. a Turkish slave, Alptagin, had been entrusted with the government of Bokhara, but, showing himself hostile to 'Abd al-malik's successor Mansur I., he was compelled to fly and to take refuge in the mountainous regions of Ghazna, where he soon established a semi-independent rule, to which, after his death in 977 (367 A.H.), his son-in-law Sabuktagin, like- wise a former Turkish slave, succeeded. Nuh II., in order to retain at least a nominal sway over those Afghan territories, confirmed him in his high position and even invested Sabuktagin's son Mahmud with the governorship of Khordsdn, in reward for the powerful help they had given him in his desperate struggles with a confederation of disaffected nobles of Bokhara under the leadership of Fa'ik and the troops of the Dailamites, a dynasty that had arisen on the shores of the Caspian Sea and wrested already from the hands of the Samanids all their western provinces. Unfortunately, Sabuktagfn died in the same year as Nuh II. (997, 387 A.H.), and Mahmud, confronted with an internal contest against his own brother Isma'il, had to withdraw his attention for a short time from the affairs in Khorasan and Transoxiana. This interval sufficed for the old rebel leader Fa'ik, supported by a strong Tartar army under Ilekkhdn, to turn Nuh's successor Manstir II. into a mere puppet, to concentrate all the XXI. - 31