Bálághát is situated above the Ghats on the tableland of Mysore. The western part of the district is very mountainous, some of the ranges attaining an elevation of between 5000 and 6000 feet. Amongst the chief ranges are the Shevaroys, the Karáyans, the Melagiris, the Kollimalais, the Pachamalais, and the Yelagiris. The chief rivers are the Cauvery with its numerous tributaries, and the Pennar and Palar; the last, however, only flows through a few miles of the Tirupatúr táluk, situated in the north-western corner of the district. The forests are of considerable value and their area is roughly estimated at 2251 square miles. The geological structure of the district is mostly gneissic, with a few irruptive rocks in the form of trap dykes and granite veins. Magnetic iron ore is common in the hill regions, and corundum and chromate of iron are also obtainable. The qualities of the soil differ very much; in the country immediately surrounding the town of Salem a thin layer of calcareous and red loam generally prevails, through which quartz rocks appear on the surface in many places. The climate, owing to the great difference of elevation, varies considerably; on the hills it is cool and bracing, and for a great part of the year very salubrious; the average rainfall is about 38 inches. Salem has about 1400 miles of road, and the length of railway line within the district is 134 miles.

In 1881 the population was 1,599,595 (males 778,483, females 821,112); Hindus numbered 1,531,855, Mohammedans 51,092, and Christians 16,567. Besides Salem (see below), the capital, the district contains three other towns with a population exceeding 10,000 each, viz., Daringambadi (15,426), Tirupatúr (14,278), and Shendamangalam (12,575). Of the total area of the district only 1,283,190 acres were under cultivation in 1883-84; but of these 137,403 acres were twice cropped. The staple crops are rice and ragi; other important crops arc pulses and seeds. The chief industry is weaving, which is carried on in almost every large town and village. Carpets of great beauty and superior workmanship are made in the Salem jail. Good iron and steel are made, but only on a small scale. The gross revenue of the district in 1883-84 was £260,364, the land-tax contributing £211,062 of the amount. Though Salem has no connected history, there are few parts of Southern India that contain more spots of interest for English students. As at present composed it was acquired by the treaty of peace with Tipu Sultan in 1792 and the partition treaty of Mysore in 1799. By the former the Talaghat and Baramahal were ceded, and by the latter the Bálághát, or what is now the Osúr táluk.

SALEM, chief town of the above district, situated in 11° 39' 10'' N. lat. and 78° 11' 47" E. long., is a busy trading place, with a considerable weaving industry. It is tolerably well built and is prettily situated on the river Tirumanimuttar, 900 feet above sea-level, in a long valley enclosed by the Shevaroy hills, which are 6 miles distant. The population of the town in 1881 was 50,667 (males 24,584, females 26,083).

SALEM, a city of the United States, capital of Essex county, Massachusetts, is built on a peninsula between North and South rivers, in 42° 31' 18" N. lat. and 70° 53' 53" W. long., 16 miles north by east of Boston, on the eastern division of the Boston and Maine Railroad. In the latter part of the 18th and the early part of the 19th century Salem was the seat of a flourishing foreign commerce, especially with the East Indies; but, its comparatively shallow harbour failing to accommodate the larger vessels of modern times, it has been supplanted by Boston and has to content itself with a good share of the coasting trade. Its industrial activity has, on the other hand, increased, and it now possesses steam cotton-mills, jute-factories, extensive tanneries, and various minor manufactories. The main interest, however, of Salem consists in its historical and literary associations and the institutions by which they are represented. Best known of these institutions is the Peabody Academy, founded in 1867 with funds provided by the well-known philanthropist. The academy at once purchased and refitted the East India Marine Hall, origin ally built in 1824 by the East India Marine Society (1799), which consisted of captains and supercargoes who had doubled either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope; and the building now contains under the trusteeship of the academy the collections of the old East India Museum and those of the Essex Institute, illustrating the zoology, natural history, and archaeology of the county. The ethnographical collections, such as that dealing with Corea, are especially valuable. The American Naturalist has been the organ of the academy since 1867. The Peabody Institute, not to be confounded with the academy, is in the village of Peabody (Danvers), about 2 miles distant from Salem and about midway between the house in which the philanthropist was born and the grave, in Harmony Grove cemetery, in which he was buried. Plummer Hall, a fine building in Essex Street, erected in 1856 out of funds left to the Salem Athenaeum by Miss Plummer, contains the libraries of the Athenaeum, the Essex Institute (founded in 1848 by the union of the Essex Historical and the Essex County Natural History Societies), and the Essex South District Medical Society, making an aggregate of 50,000 volumes. Behind this hall is the frame of the oldest church edifice in New England, erected in 1634 for Roger Williams. Other buildings of note in Salem are a State normal school, the city hall, the court-houses, the custom-house, in which Nathaniel Hawthorne once acted as surveyor of the port, and several of the private houses (such as “Dr Grimshawe’s house,” the dwelling occupied for several years by Dr Peabody, Mrs Hawthorne’s father) which, while not exactly prototypes, have lent much of their verisimilitude to the localities of Hawthorne’s fiction. The novelist was born at 21 Union Street. Salem had 24,117 inhabitants in 1870, and 27,563 in 1880.

Naumkeag (Eel Land) was the Indian name of the district in which Salem stands, and is still used familiarly by the inhabitants. The first house was built by Roger Conants from Cape Ann in 1626, and two years later a settlement was formed by John Endicott and called Salem, “from the peace they had and hoped in it.” In 1630 Governor John Winthrop introduced a large body of colonists from England, including the brave and beautiful Arabella Johnson, daughter of the earl of Lincoln, who died shortly afterwards. In 1661 the Quakers were persecuted at Salem, and in 1692 the town was the scene of Cotton Mather’s terrible proceedings against witchcraft: nineteen persons were hanged on Gallows Hill and Giles Cory was pressed to death. It was in Salem that in 1774 the house of representatives of Massachusetts resolved themselves into a sovereign political power. The town obtained a city charter in 1836. Few cities of the United States have given more eminent men to the world Timothy Pickering, secretary of state (1795-1800), General Israel Putnam, F. T. Ward of China celebrity, John Rogers and W. W. Story the sculptors, Bowditch and B. Peirce the astronomers and mathematicians, Maria S. Cummins the novelist, W. H. Prescott the historian, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

SALEM, a city of the United States, the county seat of Salem county, New Jersey, on a small stream of the same name, by which it has steam communication with Philadelphia (on the Delaware), 44 miles distant to the northnorth-east by rail. While Salem depends mainly on the agricultural prosperity of the surrounding district, it also contains foundries and machine-shops, fruit-canning establishments, glass-ware factories, oil-cloth factories, &c. The population was 3052 in 1850, 4555 in 1870, and 5056 in 1880.

A colony settled on the site of Salem in 1641 was replaced by a Swedish fort, and this passed through the Dutch to the English, One of the Quakers who in 1673 bought Lord Berkeley’s half of New Jersey gave the place its present name and restored the settlement, which in 1682 was declared a port of entry. In 1778 the town was plundered by Colonel Manhood.

SALEM, a city of the United States, the capital of Oregon, in Marion county, on the east bank of Willamette river, 53 miles south of Portland by the Oregon and California Railroad. It lies in a fertile prairie district, adorned with copses, and possesses a good source of waterpower in Mill Creek. The capitol, a rather imposing edifice with a tower 180 feet high, erected in 1875-76, occupies a fine site above the city; other public buildings are the Willamette University (Methodist), which grants degrees in medicine, science, and general literature, the opera-house, the Roman Catholic school for girls, the State penitentiary, and State schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind. Lumber, woollen goods, flour, leather, brass castings, furniture, linseed oil, and building materials are the chief articles of manufacture and trade. The population was 2538 in 1880. Settled in 1834, incorporated in 1853, Salem became the State capital in 1860.