SAALE  , a

river of Germany, a tributary of the Elbe, rises between Bayreuth and Hof in the N.E. of Bavaria, springing outof the Fichtelgebirge at an altitude of 2390 ft . It pursues a winding course in a northerly direction, and after passing the manufacturing town of Hof, flows amid well-wooded hills until it reaches the pleasant vale of Saalberg . Here it receives the waters of the Schwarza, in whose romantic valley lies the castle of Schwarzburg, the ancestral seat of the princes of the ruling house of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . From Saalberg the Saale enters the dreary limestone formation of Thuringia, ,sweeps beneath the barren, conical hills lying opposite to the university town of Jena, passes the pleasant watering-place of Kosen, washes numerous vine-clad hills and, after receiving at Naumburg the deep and navigable Unstrut, flows past Weissenfels, Merseburg, Halle, Bernburg and Kalbe, and joins the Elbe just above Barby, after traversing a distance of 226 m . It is navigable from Naumburg, too m., with the help of sluices, and is connected with the Elster near Leipzig by a canal . The soil of the lower part of its valley is of exceptional fertility, and produces, amongst other crops, large supplies of sugar beetroot . Among its affluents are the Elster, Regnitz and Orla on the right bank, and the Ilm, Unstrut, Salza, Wipper and Bode on the left . Its upper course is rapid . Its valley, down to Merseburg, is picturesque, and even romantic, because of the many castles which crown the enclosing heights . It is sometimes called the Thuringian or Saxon Saale, to distinguish it from another Saale (7o m. long), a right-bank tributary of the Main, in the Bavarian district of Lower Franconia . See Hertzberg, Die historische Bedeutung des Saaletals (Halle, 1895) .