80 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON 
truly eastern in its climate is the low ground adjoining the 
estuary of the Forth between Grangemouth and South 
Queensferry, stretching a few miles inland. 
As regards temperature, as [I have said, the eastern 
climate has greater extremes than the western. I might 
illustrate this fact thus. If aman travelled from the east 
of Scotland to the west, say from Dunbar to Oban, in 
January, he would pass gradually into a milder climate. If 
he performed the same journey in July, he would pass into 
a cooler climate. In summer and winter the isothermal 
lines run, roughly speaking, north and south. Spring and 
autumn are the transition periods, when the isothermal 
lines run east and west. The Forth Valley is, like the rest 
of Scotland, affected by these conditions. In temperature, 
as in rainfall, our Highland area is western in type, though 
more subject to fluctuation than the western isles, whose 
shores are bathed, summer and winter, by the little-changing 
waters of the Gulf Stream. 
VEGETATION. 
The Forth Valley includes in its area almost every variety 
of plant habitat, and the result is a rich and diversified 
Flora, and an endless field of investigation. The two regions 
least fully represented in the Flora are the Alpine and the 
Littoral. The Forth Valley includes a large Alpine dis- 
trict, but it is singularly barren. This is due to the want 
of those strata of limestone and chlorite schist which give 
rise to the rich Alpine vegetation of Ben Lawers and the 
Breadalbane Mountains. West of Queensferry the conditions 
of the shore are not purely maritime, and many character- 
istic seaside plants are wanting, which are found further 
down the Firth. 
There is much natural wood along the banks of the 
streams in the Highland area and in the Ochils and 
Touch Hills. Plantations are numerous and extensive, and 
some fine specimens of individual trees are to be met. I 
would mention the magnificent row of beeches by the banks 
of the Teith in Blairdrummond estate, whose massive pro- 
Oe 
