GOTH 368 GOTHLAND was afterward in turn farmer in Can- ada, schoolmaster in Alabama, and pro- fessional naturalist in Jamaica. Return- ing to England, he published "Canadian Naturalist" (1840). He wrote "Birds of Jamaica" (1851) ; "A Naturalist's So- journ in Jamaica" (1851) ; "Naturalist's Ramble on the Devonshire Coast" (1853) ; "Aquarium" (1854) ; "Manual of Marine Zoology" (1855-1856) ; "Ro- mance of Natural History" (1860-1862), his best known work; "Actinologia Britannica" (1860); "Popular British Ornithology" (1853). In the year 1886 he placed in the hands of Dr. C. T. Hudson the notes and drawings of a lifetime on the microscopic study of the Rotifera. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1856. He died in Tor- quay, Devon, in 1888. EDMUND GOSSE GOTH, one of an ancient race belong- ing to the Teutons, who originally oc- cupied a great portion of European and Asiatic Russia. Filmer, their king, con- ducted a body of his nation to the coast of the Euxine, where it afterward in- creased into a numerous and formidable people under the names of Visigoths and Ostrogoths, the former occupying the countries to the W. of the Dnieper, the latter those to the E. The Visigoths crossed the Danube, plundered Rome and Italy, and fixed their residence in Spain, while their kindred, the Ostrogoths, took possession of Italy, which they held till A. D 544, when they were overthrown by Narses, general of Justinian. From this time the Goths as a nation make no figure in history except in Spain; but traces of their language, manners, and arts are still to be found in every coun- try of the East. A branch of the Visi- goths, settled in Moesia, the modern Bul- garia, are known as Mcesogoths, and the translation of a great portion of the Bible by Wulfila, or Ulfila, a Christian bishop, about A. D. 350, fragments only of which have come down to us, is the earliest known specimen of the Gothic or Teutonic tribe of tongues. Figura- tively, a barbarian; one deficient in or utterly without taste; a rude, ignorant person. GOTHA (go'ta), a town of Germany, alternately with Coburg the capital of the former duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 31 miles W. by S. of Weimar, on the N. outskirts of the Thuringian Forest. It is a handsome, well-built town, with fine parks. The principal public building is the castle of Friedenstein, built in 1643, 78 feet above the town; it contains a library of over 200,000 volumes and 6,000 MSS., and a very valuable nu- mismatic collection. The museum (1878), in the Renaissance style, con- tains the picture gallery, in which Cranach, Van Eyck, Holbein. Rubens, and Rembrandt are represented; a very excellent cabinet of engravings; a natural history collection; collections of Egyptian, Roman, Greek and German antiquities; and a Japanese and Chinese museum. A new observatory was built in 1874. Gotha prior to the World War was an active industrial town, the prin- cipal manufactures being shoes, fire en- gine pipes, sugar and toys. Gotha sausages have a widespread celebrity. Several hundreds of designers, engrav- ers, printers, and map-colorers were em- ployed here in the geographical estab- lishment of Justus Perthes, who also publishes the "Almanach de Gotha" (see Almanac). Pop. about 39,500. GOTTHARD, ST. See St. Gotthard. GOTHLAND or GOTTLAND, a Swed- ish island in the Baltic, 44 miles E. from the mainland, and with Faro, Gotsk Sando, and other smaller islands constituting the province of Gottland or Wisby; area, 1,219 square miles; pop. (1918) 56,028. The island con- sists mainly of terrace-like slopes of limestone, encircled by cliffs, broken by numerous deep fiords, more especially on the W. coast; the E. parts are flat. Next to agriculture, the chief occupa- tions of the inhabitants are fishing, fov.I- ing, and lime-burning. In the Middle Ages the island belonged to the German Hanseatic League, but was restored to Sweden in 1645. Capital, Wisby.
