200 ox THE OLD AND REMARKABLE 



and 14 feet 8 inches in circumference at the middle of the trunk, 

 thus o'ivinsf 484 cubic feet of timber. He further informs us 

 that the whole valley of the Mth at its lower end (about Kirk- 

 connell and Xewabbey on the borders of the Xith, and Xewabbev 

 Poer or stream) is thickly underlaid, at a depth of from 4 to 7 

 feet, with large oaks, which are frequently exposed, and brought 

 to light by the shifting of the river jSTith or its tributary streams. 

 In this locality some large and fine oaks still exist at the present 

 day, and by reference to the appended returns to this paper, it 

 will be seen that they girth from 14 feet 9 inches to 20 feet in cir- 

 cumference at 1 foot, and from 13 feet 9 inches to 17 feet 6 inches 

 at 5 feet above ground. Other submerged forests — if they may 

 be so called — of oaks exist on other parts of the coasts of Scot- 

 land ; while in the Hio-hlands, and the more remote northern 

 counties, as well as in several of the adjacent islands of the 

 Hebrides, oak trunks are fallen upon in cutting peats where 

 now not a tree is to be seen. Were these districts, and the 

 Scottish islands generally, therefore, always incapable of grow- 

 ing timber, as they are too generally supposed and believed to be 

 at the present day ? The evidence goes to prove that they were 

 not, and strong grounds for hope may be consequently entertained 

 that, with perseverance and the introduction of the suitable 

 descriptions of trees, thesewastes may be again, through the energy 

 of their proprietors, replanted with success. Of course, it must 

 not be imagined that we advocate the planting, in sea-board 

 situations, of the oak, for although these remains of former oak 

 forests, of which no history save their gaunt stumps and fallen 

 trunks now remain, are found under sands, and even below the 

 tide-mark in various localities, this may be owing to the varia- 

 tions and upheavals of the beach, to inroads by the sea upon the 

 land, and to various causes of a similar nature having altered the 

 relative position of sea and land at the present day, from what 

 these occu];)ied when these now submerged woodlands waved 

 their foliage and reared their gigantic truoks in pristine health 

 and vigour. We find similar traces of early indigenous oak 

 plantations in Scotland having existed in very remote times in 

 far inland situations and even at considerable altitudes. For 

 example, at Dunkeld, in Lady Well Wood of the Athole planta- 

 tions, and upon a flat plateau in the upper part of the wood, at 

 considerable altitude, there is a "curious formation of the ground, 

 — abrupt heights or knolls being intersj)ersed with basin-like 

 hollows, — where, some years ago, in the course of draining these 

 hollows, the workmen came upon the remains of the trunks of 

 many old indigenous oaks embedded in the soil. They were of 

 great size, and lay strewed in one direction, as if at some remote 

 period the whole had succumbed at one time to some sweeping 

 hurricane which had lashed across the district, levelling whole 



