MAN'S INFLUENCE ON INDIGENOUS FLORA OF ABERDEEN 177 



and public parks. The numerous streams have been largely 

 carried in channels underground, the valleys have been filled 

 up, and the heights frequently lowered, until it has become 

 difficult to recognise the features shown on the earlier maps. 

 The estuary of the Dee, originally of considerable extent, 

 has disappeared except in so far as it is occupied as a 

 harbour, a new channel being cut before 1870, for about a 

 mile of the river's course, and much of the former estuary 

 being afterwards filled with rubbish of all kinds, and built 

 over. Where rock comes to the surface it has been quarried 

 in several places. Most of the quarries within the 

 municipal area have ceased to be worked, and in one or two 

 places can no longer be traced ; but some remain more or 

 less filled with water, and surrounded with piles of debris. 



Less change is apparent on the sandy coast and dunes 

 between the Dee and the Don, and on a strip of varying 

 width inland from the dunes, part of it, near the Don, liable 

 to be flooded by high tides ; but even here there has been 

 considerable changes made in recent years, and they are 

 likely to be still greater in the immediate future. 



The flora in and around Aberdeen has been greatly 

 affected by the alterations of the surface ; but actual records 

 by botanists are few prior to 1830, and none go back to 

 1750. However, in view of the evidence, stated above, that 

 the town-area was small until considerably after 1750, and 

 that there had been few attempts made to reclaim the rough 

 and barren soils except in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 the town, it may safely be assumed that over much of what 

 is now covered by Aberdeen the natural flora grew almost 

 unchanged by man. There still existed lochs, swamps, and 

 streams, moors and peat-mosses, rough thickets by the 

 streams, estuaries little, if at all changed, shingles and marsh 

 by the rivers, and dunes in their natural condition along the 

 coast. The streams had not been polluted with domestic 

 sewage or industrial waste, except that the dyers seem to 

 have discharged coloured refuse into the Loch, which was 

 probably in a not very clean state. It seems likely that no 

 plantations, and certainly no natural woods, existed near 

 the town. Peat was probably still cut from mosses within 

 the area, as at Ferryhill, where an old peat-moss was a 

 79 E 



