SALAMANCA, one of the departments into which the kingdom or province of Leon, in Spain, is divided. It is situated between lat. 40° and 41° 38' north. The river Duero forms its limit to the north and north-west, except where it comes in contact with Portugal. Estremadura is on its southern side, and the province of Segovia to the eastward. It extends over 471 square leagues, and its population amounts to 272,982 souls. It generally consists of an open country with extensive plains, and for the most part destitute of trees. The soil is more fruitful than its appearance would suggest. It yields excellent corn, and in moist summers the harvests are abundant; but it is subject to that want which the greater part of Spain feels from the scarcity of water; for although there are several rivers in the department, the influence of their moisture extends but a small distance from their banks. The principal of these rivers is the Duero, into which the Alba, the Tormes, and the Agueda run, whilst the Alagon, taking a southern course, runs into the Tagus. From the nature of the soil through which these rivers pass, they have worn very deep channels, and therefore cannot be used for the purposes of irrigation, without a portion of labour and expenditure which the inhabitants are neither willing nor able to bestow upon them. Though generally the department is destitute of wood, yet in some parts there are extensive forests of evergreen oak trees, without any brushwood under them; and the oaks themselves are without those spreading branches and lofty tops with which our forests exhibit these trees. They are, however, of considerable benefit to the inhabitants by their copious produce of acorns, on which large droves of pigs are fed. The peasants who attend to these animals precede the drove, and proceeding from tree to tree, beat them with a kind of flail, causing the acorns to fall, which the swine most greedily devour. They thus proceed daily from tree to tree till the food they supply is exhausted. The hams of the pigs fattened in this way are most highly esteemed. In this department large flocks of the merino kind of sheep are fed; and many of the stationary kind are bred here, whose wool is of a very inferior degree of fineness. In the early part of the late war the plains of Salamanca were very favourable to the operations of the French armies, who being superior in cavalry, could act on them with the most powerful effect. The cattle of this province are reckoned to be 9363 horses, 6163 mules, 22,002 asses, 107,800 oxen, 103,401 goats, and 107,200 pigs. Of fruits it yields 9500 fanegas of chestnuts, 502,000 of nuts, and 12,000 of raisins.

Salamanca, a city of Spain, head of the department of the same name, in the province or kingdom of Leon. It is situated on the river Tormes, over which there is a bridge standing, the piers of which were built by the Romans, and there remain twelve of the arches constructed by them, and thirteen of more recent date, probably erected since the expulsion of the Moors. At a short distance Salamanca has a most imposing effect. Its lofty towers and cupolas, the magnificent Gothic cathcdral, the numerous convents and colleges, and the lengthened bridge which leads to them, present a landscape of the first order.

The immediate vicinity of the city is fruitful, being on a plain surrounded by mountains of no great elevation, though the Sierra de Guadarrama is visible in the distance, towering above them. It is well supplied from its fields with wine, corn, fruits, and edible vegetables. It grows some flax and oil, but procures a part of the latter from Estremadura and Andalusia.

The principal fame of Salamanca has arisen from its university, which is one of the largest establishments for education in Spain, if not in Europe. The professors are not generally distinguished for their learning or activity, and principally exercise their faculties in keeping the minds of the pupils down to that level of inquiry and pursuit which is best calculated to secure their attachment to the existing civil and religious institutions of their country. Every inquiry which may have a tendency to lead them from this beaten track is most carefully checked; and even books of science, if composed by foreigners, are viewed with a suspicion that there may be in them some latent heretical tenets. Under such restraints, it is not wonderful that the orthodoxy of the university of Salamanca is unimpeached. The spirit of loyalty was, in fact, so great, that at the com-[7:19:617] mencement of the invasion a regiment was formed from the students, which was soon disciplined and effective, but the whole of which was almost destroyed at the fatal battle of Medellin.

No establishment of the kind in Spain enjoys revenues equal to this university, and none under proper regulations could be more beneficial to this or any country; but science and knowledge are so checked by the tendency towards the preservation of the religion of the state, and the apprehension that knowledge may give a bias contrary to the interests of the church, that a vast deal of time, which might be usefully employed, is devoted, both by pupils and tutors, to a course of studies which, to say the least, neither tends to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge nor to strengthen the minds of the students. Besides the candidates for holy orders, great numbers of the sons of good families from all parts of Spain are sent to this seminary to pass a few years; and hence the number of the members of the university has at some periods amounted to more than four thousand. The regular inhabitants of the city, exclusive of the university, amount to 13,500 persons.

The cathedral is a fine object of the Gothic kind, though of no earlier erection than the reign of Charles I. of Spain, in the beginning of the sixteenth century; and as at that period Gothic architecture was on the decline in Spain, it will not bear very rigid criticism. It is, however, a magnificent mass of building, and is adorned with paintings from the pencil of Titian, Spagnoletti, and some other great masters. The college formerly belonging to the order of Jesuits is a very large pile of building, now occupied by regular canons. The church, dedicated to St Mark, within it, has some of the best productions of the Spanish painter Mengs, but being a representation of the various parts of the life of Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits, whatever merit they may have as paintings, they have now none as historical pieces.

The principal square of Salamanca, in the centre of the city, is a fine object. The buildings that surround it are handsome and lofty, and supported by piazzas, under which is the principal public walk for the inhabitants. It is situated in latitude 4L 21. N.