On the Native Forests of Aberdeenshire. 9 



but on tlie opposite side of the Dee, and at a considerably lower 

 elevation. But there are other mosses, much nearer the coast, 

 where fir-trees are found, although not in such numbers as here. 

 I cannot state the most eastern limit at which they have been 

 found. In the valley of Alford the few mosses that occur, do not, 

 as far as I have seen or heard, furnish any fir-trees. The wood 

 found in them is birch, alder, some species of willows, hazel, and 

 I think the mountain-ash, all in a state of extreme decay. The 

 oaks that I have seen found here, were not in mosses, but buried 

 under the common vegetable mould, in soft ground, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of springs. 



On the whole, although the relics of our former forests do not, 

 perhaps, entitle us to conclude that the Pinus sylvestris was dis- 

 seminated over the whole country, when it found a suitable soil, 

 or extended down to the coast ; yet there is complete evidence that 

 it existed, in a native state, much more extensively than it does 

 now, and at elevations greatly lower than its present native fo- 

 rests. 



5. Is the wood of the native forests more valuable than that of the 

 cultivated fir ? The answer to this query will involve the discussion 

 of some collateral questions, of much curiosity, and of great prac- 

 tical interest, and I believe that what I have had occasion to wit- 

 ness going on around me, will furnish the ground of a satisfactory 

 answer to them. 



There is no question that the wood of the aged trees of the na- 

 tive forests is highly valuable, equal to the best Baltic and Norway 

 wood, both for strength and durability. A remarkable proof of its 

 durability has been stated to me by the informant to whom I have 

 repeatedly referred. He tells me that, in the month of January 

 1779, a severe westerly storm overturned a great many trees in the 

 forest of Mar Lodge. A short time previous to his being there in 

 1804, twenty-five years after the storm, it had been discovered that 

 these trees, Avhich, owing to their relatively inaccessible situa- 

 tion, and the little demand for wood in that quarter, had been per- 

 mitted to remain where they fell, were quite fresh, and furnished 

 wood of a highly valuable quality, although appearing rotten or 

 charred on the outside. He was a witness to many of them being 

 cut up and sawn into deals ; and the only objection which the pur- 

 chasers made to them was, that on account of the unusually great 

 quantity of turpentine which they contained, the saw became so 

 coated with it as to render the manufacturing of them a matter of 

 difiiculty. Many of these trees were of large dimensions. Some of 

 them which he had the curiosity to measure were 5 feet in diameter. 

 Single trees had been overturned in all parts of the forest ; and in 

 some places many trees and whole clumps were prostrated toge- 

 ther, and the trunks, as they lay, were every where exposed to 

 the full infiuence of the weather. Here then we have an incon- 

 trovertible proof of the great durability of this wood. If any other 

 were necessary, it might be found in the roofs and fittings-up of 



VOL. II. B 



