ÖFVERSIGT AF K. VETENSK.-AKAD. FÖRHANDLINGAR 1895, N:0 U. 025 



weatlier to search for tliese aniinals in the deptlis of the bay of 

 Capelshainn. To liis admiration of the coral sliores of tliis place 

 he again, in the same year, fresh from his tour in Gotland, gave 

 vent in the following terms, spöken in a public oration »Qua 

 peregrinationum inträ patriam asseritur necessitas>>: >^Corallifera 

 Indorum litora rairamur, sed Capelli portus (locus est in Goth- 

 landia), credite Auditores, unus hic locus exsequat, immo ex- 

 superat orientis has opes; vidi enim densissima Corallorum strata 

 per integra stadia et milliaria hujus litoris sese extendentia.» 

 Of course it was the enthusiasm of a youthful orator — LiNNiEUS 

 was then only 34 years old — which dictated such exaggerated 

 periods. His opinion that the corals still lived off the shores of 

 Gotland continued unchanged in 1745, when the »Corallia baltica» 

 was printed, as may be seen from various expressions on pages 

 10 — 11. A change sets in with the »Museum Tessinianum» 

 (1753), in which on page 84, he says, under the heading of 

 Corallia fossilia, »Ex liis autem nullum vivum extractum obser- 

 vavimus, quamvis quotannis immensa copia rejiciatur ad littora, 

 inprimis Gothlandiae, ut merito dubitemus, num etiamnum apud 

 nos prognascantur vel dudum ad aquas nobis incognitas mig- 

 rarunt.» 



No wonder he could foster such views, when the knowledge 

 of marine animals and plants in a living state was so impei'fect. 

 He followed what those old masters, Toürnefort and Boerhave, 

 had enunciated, and in his Genera plantarum (1737) he placed 

 the corals among the Cryptogamic plants, forming a group 

 Lithophyta, the lowest in the vegetable kingdoni. In this work 

 he enumerates Millepora, his own new-created genus, characteri- 

 sed by simple pores, Madrepora with radiated pits and Tubipora, 

 composed of parallel cylinders, which three genera we find in 

 all his works. 



In the narrative of his tour in Gotland he had been in- 

 fluenced by the discoveries of B. JussiEU, but in the Corallia 

 baltica, again, he is doubtful and cannot decide in which of the 

 three kingdoms of nature they are to be ranged. Traces of 



