SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. 103 



it was the best piece of timber he had seen in the Western Isles, 

 is told, but these travellers were never in Tiree, although they 

 visited the neighbouring island of Coll. It was in Mull that the 

 Doctor's oak stick was lost — "Consider, Sir, the value of such a 

 piece of timber here." This was in 1773. Now, as then, there is not 

 a tree on this fertile island (Tiree), and endeavours to introduce them 

 have failed, and the peat-moss has itself been aim ost exhausted. Yet 

 50 years ago and earlier, roots or portions of trees were found in 

 numbers when peat was being cut, evidently the remains of a 

 blown wood, probably oaks and hazels. 1 For such trees to attain 

 any size Tiree must have afforded such shelter as it does not do 

 to-day, and the configuration of the land must have been different, 

 and so we are carried back to pre-historic times. Orkney and 

 Shetland furnish evidences of such a land-movement, as submerged 

 trees may be seen at several places, namely, Otterwick Bay 

 (Sanday), Millbay and Roithisholm (Stronsay), Westness House 

 (Rousay), the west side of Westness and at Hoy, all in Orkney. 



The abundant use of wood by the early inhabitants of Scotland 

 shows that they had it in great plenty. Timber was for many 

 ages the staple material for house-building, and the only material 

 for boat-building. So late as 1746, at the Cross of Dundee 

 there were not more than four or five houses built of stone. In 

 early times we have evidence of the presence of abundant and 

 large trees from the use made of timber in building. Without 

 going into details it may be stated that the natives dwelt in 

 wooden huts or houses in preference to cave-dwellings ; that 

 their villages were surrounded by a wooden stockade ; and that 

 the Romans, as a means of defence, erected a palisade of 

 stakes of timber round their temporary camps or halting places. 

 The natives further sought security by forming timber lake- 

 dwellings or crannogs in which they could isolate themselves, 

 and which were inhabited as early as the Bronze Age, and, 

 in Strathclyde, down till its final conquest by the Saxons. 

 In the Celtic area they were occupied even till the middle 

 of 17 th century, but these were then really mediaeval island- 

 castles. The castle on the island in Loch-an-Eilan (Strathspey) 

 is an old crannog, (now a mediaeval castle in ruins), and with 



1 Annals of Scottish Natural History, No. 25, pp. 33-4; S. M. Mac Vicar. 



