1816.] MUKCHISON ON THE GEOLOGY OF GOTHLAND. 19 



nasteries of the once-flourisljing Hanseatic city of Wisby, stand upon 

 different ledges of the rock. They there constitute an undercliff, 

 the site having evidently been chosen on account of numerous springs 

 of pure water which flow out upon the subjacent shale. The Wisby 

 limestone is, for the most part, a grey subcry^talline mass passing 

 in numerous points into marblef , in which abundance of Upper 

 Silurian corals are visible; but with the exception of corals and 

 encrinite stems, which occur profusely, other fossils in good preser- 

 vation are less frequently obtained in the limestone than in the ar- 

 gillaceous way-boards and underlying nodular shale. 



In order to convey a just idea of the structure of the northern 

 division of Gothland, I have prepared two diagrams. The first of these 

 (PI. I. fig. 8) is a sectional view of the coast extending from Hog Klint 

 to Lummelund, as seen from the cliff, which is vertical and higher than 

 in any other part of the island. The second (fig. 9) is the detailed 

 section of the same High Cliff, or Hog Klint. The lowest beds (e, 

 fig. 9), extending to the water's edge, consist of dark grey shales, 

 from thirty to forty feet in thickness, with nodules of limestone, and 

 perfectly resemble the Wenlock shale of Britain. In these the 

 Terebratula plicatella and T. prisca are very abundant, together with 

 LeptcBna depressa, Spirifer cardiospermiformis, Orthis elegantula^ 

 Dalm., a Leptcena approaching to L. sericea^ and many well-known 

 Wenlock species, both of shells and corals, including in the latter a 

 multitude of Cyclolites. 



The next strata (/), forming a projecting ledge midway in the 

 cliffs, are reddish encrinital limestones, in beds three or four feet 

 thick, very much resembling certain red and pink varieties, worked 

 for marble along the Wenlock edge ; these beds graduate upwards 

 into the ui)permost mass (/*), a hard grey limestone containing 

 large irregular concretions, like the ball-stones of Wenlock and 

 Dudley, which, as in England, descend into and apparently cut out 

 the bedded rock. 



From the angular masses of limestone which had fallen on the 

 beach below, we collected, in addition to the fossils above-named, 

 the following corals : Catenipora escharoidesy Favosites Gothlandica 

 (most abundant), Stromatopora concentrica^ Cystiphyllum helian- 

 thoideSi Porites pyriformis, &c., together with EuomphalusfunatuSy 

 JjS^^alatuSy and two or three species of Crinoidea, &c. These fossils 

 -^ti^r^^me group occur at Cappelhamn and at Lummelund on the 



t The limestones of Gothland have served in ancient time for the construction 

 of the numerous beautiful Gothic churches with which the island abounds, and 

 many of the porticos of these churches exhibit varieties of marble which have been 

 formed into slender pillars and highly wrought and elaborate capitals. An archaeo- 

 logist would indeed reap a rich harvest in spending a summer month or two in Goth- 

 land, where not only amid the magnificent monastic ruins of its capital, Wisby, but 

 also in many of its striking parish churches, he would find some fine types of early 

 Norman and mediaeval architecture, all easily accessible, and for the examination 

 of which the kind and hospitable Governor, General von Hohenhausen, the Baron 

 Fock, the intelligent English Vice Consul, M. Enequist, the Magister Soderberg, 

 the Countess Schaerer, and others I could gratefully refer to, would afford him 

 every facilitv. 



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