134 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



There is material for conjecture, however, perhaps 

 more persuasive than any based on such traditions and 

 inferences as the foregoing. The pursuit of it leads us to 

 the far north, to the sea on the shores of which the amber 

 was first gathered, and to the great island city once grand 

 in marble and brass, but of which now even the ruins are 

 forgotten. 



In the Baltic, about equidistant from Sweden, Russia, 

 and Germany, lies the island of Gottland, by some iden- 

 tified as the Kungla of the national epic 1 of the Esthon- 

 ians, where it is always described as a fairy land of adven- 

 ture and untold wealth. Hither came the maritime com- 

 merce of the Wendic people after their capital city, Veneta, 

 had been destroyed in 1043. Originally occupied by 

 Goths, and later jointly by Goths and Germans, these 

 tribes maintained incessant contests, which ultimately led 

 to the downfall of the place. During the period of its 

 supremacy, the island became a rendezvous for the vessels 

 of all trading nations, and its principal settlement, Wisby 

 or Wisbuy, despite the constant internal strife, grew 

 into a city of large extent, the ruins of which have re- 

 vealed many works of art and luxury. Olaus Magnus, 2 

 the great historian of the North, writing in 1555, speaks 

 of it as a noble town, possessing a strongly-defended 

 citadel. He says that it was the emporium of many 

 regions, and that nowhere else in Europe was there such 

 trade: that flocking thither came the Goths, the Gauls, 

 the Swedes, the Russians, the Danes, the Angles, the 

 Scots, the Flemings, the Vandals, the Saxons, the Span- 

 iards and the Finns; these different people freely mingling 

 with one another and filling the streets, the town hospi- 

 tably welcoming all; that, in his time, there still remained 



'The Kalevipoeg. See Kirby : The Hero of Esthonia. London, 1895. 

 2 Olaus Magnus: Hist, de Gent Septen. Rome, 1555, lib. 2, cxxiv. 



