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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Scotch firs. This is the more remarkable, as the Scotch fir is not 

 considered by botanists an indigenous tree to southern Britain ; 

 nay, more, Mr. Darwin has shown that it can not live on open or 

 exposed situations where deer or cattle graze unless it is protected 

 by a fenced inclosure. Sheep and cows and stags nibble it down 

 to the ground in its earliest ages, so that Scotch firs may be found 

 in open spaces on English heaths, showing many annual rings of 

 growth, but eaten close to the soil by the ever-active herbivores.* 

 Hence we must conclude (since barrows stand for the most part 

 in extremely open, heathy country) that not only were the Scotch 

 firs deliberately planted on the tumuli, but also that they were 

 carefully protected by fences till a relatively late or even histori- 

 cal period. A particularly fine example of a round barrow over- 

 grown with ancient Scotch firs is to be found near St. Martha's 

 Chapel at Guildford. Another, a little less striking, but equally 

 characteristic, stands on the summit of Milton Heath, near Dork- 

 ing. It is faced on the opposite side of the road by a second and 

 extremely degraded barrow, also marked by a conspicuous clump 

 of pine trees. A group of very ancient and gnarled Scotch firs, 

 known as the Glory, on the hill just behind Dorking to the south, 

 forms another and still more noble example of the same combina- 

 tion. But I need not labor the point. Whoever knows our south- 

 ern counties knows that barrows and Scotch firs go together almost 

 universally. Indeed, I believe there are no very old firs in Sur- 

 rey, Kent, or Hampshire that do not so stand on antique tumuli. 



Now, as these trees are not indigenous to southern England, 

 and as they could only have grown under the protection of a 

 fence, I conclude that the ancestors of the existing firs were 

 planted there when the barrows were first formed, were long se- 

 cured from harm by a belief in their sanctity, and have kept up 

 their race ever since, either by seeds or shoots, under cover of the 

 old trees, to the present day. The Scotch fir is in England the 

 sacred tree of the barrows. 



Have we here, then, I would venture to ask, the origin of the 

 sacred pine tree of Attis ? I incline to believe that we have. As 

 the pine tree is planted upon tumuli in many parts of the world, 

 and is often protected by walls or hedges, it would seem to be 

 naturally associated with the ghost, and to become, in the express- 

 ive phrase used by Mr. Macdonald, the " prayer tree " of the de- 

 parted. 



This, then, I take it, is the true explanation of the prominent 

 part which the pine tree plays in the myth and ritual of Attis. 

 Nor is it any objection to our view that Attis is also apparently 

 envisaged in an alternative form both as a man or god, and as 



* Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 56. 



