194 The Scottish Naturalist. 



One of the most notable of our post-glacial accumulations is 

 the old ''forest bed" which occurs at many different points along 

 our coasts, and is nowhere better developed than in the lower 

 reaches of the Tay and the Earn. It is now generally acknow- 

 ledged that the submerged peat and " submarine forests " of the 

 maritime regions of Scotland belong approximately to the same 

 period as the similar vegetable accumulations which occur under 

 like conditions along the shores of Ireland and England, and the 

 opposite coasts of the Continent. They bear witness to a time 

 when the British Islands were united to themselves and the 

 mainland of Europe, and when the climate of our area no doubt 

 differed to some extent from the present. But geologists are not 

 quite agreed as to what the precise character of that climate may 

 have been. Some think it was probably warmer than the present ; 

 others, however, have maintained an opposite view, and relying 

 on the evidence of the large pines met with in certain English 

 peat-beds, have been inclined to believe it was rather colder ; 

 while yet others have supposed that our summer and winter were 

 then more strongly contrasted, and that the climate would be 

 properly described as continental. I am afraid that the geographi- 

 cal botany of our ancient "buried forests" has not been so ex- 

 haustively analysed as to entitle us to say which of these views 

 is the most probable. But looking at the question from a geolo- 

 gical standpoint, the opinion grows upon me that there is truth 

 in each, and that the apparent contradictions arise from our 

 having considered all the "buried forests" as strictly contempor- 

 aneous, — as the relics of an arboreal vegetation which covered the 

 whole British area at one and the same time. Now it is certain 

 that in a geological classification, the accumulations in question 

 must be regarded as synchronous ; nevertheless, as the trees 

 flourished during what must have been a protracted period, it is 

 not necessary to suppose that the buried forests of one district 

 grew at precisely the same time as those in some other part of 

 the country. The climate may well have undergone many minor 

 changes while Britain maintained its connection with the Con- 

 tinent, so that we are not forced to believe that the massive pines, 

 with their thick bark, which occur in the peat of southern 

 England, are precisely contemporaneous with the oaks which 

 formerly flourished at high elevations in the Scottish Highlands. 

 In short, the various buried forests which bespeak so many dif- 

 ferent climatic conditions may pertain to different stages of the 

 same epoch — some indicating a colder, some a warmer, tempera- 



