SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. 99 



of pine-trees in a well-preserved state. In many localities in the 

 ancient province of Moray, e.g., in the glens of Tromie and 

 Feshie and Guisach, and on the now bare mountain-sides of 

 Cairngorm, Ben Muichdhui, Ben Aigan, the Convals, the Cam 

 districts and the Monadhliath range is indisputable evidence of 

 ancient woodlands, where now no trees, or but few, stand. 1 



In the forest of Mar large trunks of Scots fir are found 

 immured in peat ; on Bennachie during peat-cutting, hazel was the 

 wood chiefly found ; near Loch Builg, at the root of a stump in the 

 moss, a horn of Bos albifrojis (? longifrons) was discovered ; in Glen 

 Muick, the mosses contain numerous remains of what is called 

 the "ancient Caledonian Forest;" the sections cut by a tributary 

 of the Tarf (Alll a' Chaorruinn = Rowantree Burn), Glen Tilt, 

 show numerous old roots of trees ; and, about the head-waters of 

 the Dee and near Derry Lodge, burnt wood is frequently found, 

 below moss and tree roots, at a depth of from two to three feet — 

 even three depths or layers have been found. 2 In the west, the 

 upper portion of Glenorchy and the haunches of Ben Cruachan, 

 and from beyond Tyndrum on to the King's House, show decayed 

 roots of trees, many of them of large size 3 — Dorothy Wordsworth 

 noticed this in the course of her Tour in 1803. In her Recollections 

 (p. 181) she says, — "We passed neither tree nor shrub for miles 

 — I include the whole space from Glencoe [to Inveroran] — yet 

 we saw perpetually traces of a long decayed forest, pieces of black 

 mouldering wood." Pennant observed the same feature and wrote, 

 — "Pass near Loch Talla, a long narrow piece of water, with a small 

 pine wood on its side. A few weather-beaten pines and birch 

 appear scattered up and down, and in all the bogs great numbers 

 of roots, that evince the forest that covered the country within 

 this half century. These were the last pines that I saw growing 

 spontaneously in North Britain." 4 



At Carse, near Tarbert, Lochfyne, the decayed root of an oak tree 

 may be seen in situ cropping out above the moss. Ballachulish 

 Moss . . . was, like the rest of Lochaber, thickly covered with 

 native wood of large and luxuriant growth, as the huge boles and 



1 Vertebrate Fauna of Moray, pp. 124, 5, 9. 



2 Cairngorm Club Journal, I., pp. 238, 65, 55, 315. 



3 Vertebrate Fauna of Moray, I., pp. 124-5. 



4 Thos. Pennant's Tour in Scotland (1769), 4th Ed., Lon. 1776, p. 232. 



