1868.] DAWSON — RESTORATION OF FORESTS. 415 



case of Denmark would seem to have been an exception to this.* 

 At a very early pre-historic time it seems to have been covered 

 by forests of Scotch fir. These were destroyed, probably by a 

 great fire like that of Miramichi. The people perished or were 

 driven from the country, and were replaced by another race, 

 while the forests grew up again, but were now composed of oak. 

 Still more recently the oak forests were replaced by beech. The 

 stages of unrecorded human history connected in Denmark with 

 these successive forests, are thus summed up by Steeustrup and 

 Morlot : — " 1st. A stone period, when the inhabitants were small- 

 sized men, brachykephalous or short-headed, like the modern 

 Lapps, using stone implements, and subsisting by hunting ; then 

 the country, or a considerable part of it, was covered by forests of 

 Scotch fir {Pinus sylvestris) . 2nd. A bronze period, in which 

 implements of bronze as well as of stone were used, and the skulls 

 of the people were larger and longer than in the previous period; 

 while the country seems to have been covered with forests of oak 

 (Quercus robur). 3rd. An iron period, which lasted to the 

 historic times, and in which beech forests replaced those of oak." 

 All of these remains are geologically recent ; and, except the 

 changes in the forests, and of some indigenous animals in con- 

 sequence, and probably a slight elevation of some parts of 

 Denmark, no material changes in organic or inorganic nature 

 have occurred. 



The Danish antiquaries have attempted to calculate the age of 

 the oldest of these deposits by considerations based on the growth 

 of peat, and the succession of trees ; but these calculations are 

 obviously unreliable. The first forest of pines would, when it 

 attained maturity, naturally be destroyed, as usually happens in 

 America, by forest conflagrations. It might perish in this way 

 in a single summer. The second growth which succeeded would, 

 in America, be birch, poplar, and similar trees, which would form 

 a new and tall forest in half a century; and in two or three 

 centuries would probably be succeeded by a second permanent 

 forest, which in the present case seems to have been of oak. 

 This would be of longer continuance, and would, independently 

 of human agency, only be replaced by beech, if, in the course of 

 ages, the latter tree proved itself more suitable to the soil, 

 climate, and other conditions. Both oak and beech are of slow 



* Lyell, "Antiquity of Man " ; Lubbock, in Xat. Hist. Eeview. 



