SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. IOI 



Such facts are not new discoveries, for Bishop Leslie writing in 

 1578, referring to the "Kingdom of Fife," says : — "Bot this causes 

 men meruellouslie to wondir that vndir that earth ar fund grat 

 stokis and blokis of wonderful akes and vthir tries, sum rottin 

 throuch aldnes, sum agane fresch and hail and for Digging nocht 

 unmeit : for that thir tries sumtyme grew in thir places is cleirer 

 than the nune day, and that throuch force and nocht throuch age 

 they haue bene brocht out is euident aneuch, quhen mony of 

 thame, as said is, remanes yet nocht wormetin and uncorrupte, 

 bot freshe and fyne and meit to be put in vse." 



In more southern districts, at Kilbarchan, more than 100 years 

 ago, a layer of deep white clay, underneath a moss 7 to 9 feet 

 deep, contained the stumps and remains of a wood — the oaks 

 perfectly fresh and the other kinds of timber rotten ; ' in Darnley 

 Glen, when recently digging foundations for a new Crushing 

 Mill, a large old oak with branches still attached was found buried 

 underneath the bed of the burn, and similar old oaks have turned 

 up in other places in the glen, where digging has been done in 

 connection with the Arden Lime Works ; in Maxwell Park, 

 Glasgow, are to be seen old stems and roots of trees, mostly oak, 

 many of which were dug up when the park was being formed, and 

 the peat and moss extend to a considerable extent over the 

 adjoining lands : during some excavations at Holyrood curling 

 pond, Edinburgh, a large Scots fir about two feet in diameter was 

 found lying in a bed of peat, about five feet from the surface ; in 

 the Gartcosh direction peaty moorland abounds, lochs breaking 

 it up and showing stumps and remains of trees washed out by the 

 water — the lochs, such as Woodend, being sometimes fringed by 

 patches of natural wood, mostly birch ; at St. Quivox (Ayrshire) 

 part of what is called the " Great Moss " still exists, and evidence 

 is afforded, by the numerous roots of trees which have been dug 

 up in the vicinity, that the soil had been thickly studded with 

 timber at some period or other ; 2 in the hollow at Manorhead 

 (Peebles), more than 1000 feet above sea-level, as in the channels 

 of other streams thereabouts, birch boles have been found inlaid 

 in the sand and peat ; 3 at the foot of Loch Dungeon, Galloway, 



1 Old Statistical Account, XIV., p. 484. 



2 Paterson's History of Ayrshire, L, pp. 2, 262. 



3 Veitch's Scottish Border, I., p. 13. 



