A CORNFIELD 



they may, when in flood, overflow, but the results are very 

 soon no longer visible. Even on the moors and in the 

 depths of the Highlands, black-faced sheep, draining, and 

 the regular burning of the heather, have quite transformed 

 our country. 



The original woods have long since vanished : those which 

 now exist are mostly quite artificial plantations, and the 

 very trees are often strangers to Britain. 



The story of the Herculean labour by which our country, 

 once as wild and as savage as its early inhabitants the 

 Icenians and Catieuchlanians (and probably with linea- 

 ments as barbarous as those of the Coritanian and Trino- 

 bant), has been changed to peaceful, fertile meadowlands or 

 tidy arable, is one long romance. To tell it properly would 

 require a book to itself. In this chapter we shall only try 

 to sketch what may have happened on one particular corn- 

 field which 'exists on the trap-rocks of Kilbarchan, near 

 Glasgow.^ The reader must bear in mind that even this is 

 a very ambitious attempt ! It is an exceedingly difficult 

 undertaking. 



The subsoil in this particular cornfield (on Pennell Brae) 

 lies upon the trap-rock formed by one of those gigantic 

 lava-flows which cover that part of Renfrewshire. The 

 whole district at that time must have been exactly like 

 Vesuvius during the late eruption. Its scenery in this early 

 miocene period consisted of glowing molten rock, accom- 

 panied by flames of fire, electrical storms, clouds of gas, dust, 

 ashes, and superheated steam. 



Every plant and every animal must have been extermi- 



1 As the story probably differs in detail for every district, the author 

 is obliged to confine himself to ground which he has actually seen and 

 studied. 



146 



