62 



as would furnish matter for a separate paper whicli I hope he 

 may be induced to give the Club at some future time. I will 

 only here give a short summary of what he has ascertained. 

 Setting aside fir trees growing in the proximity of houses, or in 

 adjacent woods containing other trees besides firs, where it would 

 be difficult to distinguish between such as were wild and such as 

 had been planted ; he finds, on the open ground, scattered trees 

 upon Kingsdown, Banner Down and Lansdown. I have already 

 spoken of the Combe Down Firs, and Mr. Broome informs me 

 that he had seen formerly a few old trees, some merely stumps, 

 in the vicinity of Sham Castle. On Hampton Down, on the 

 edge of the hill near the Rifle Butts, where Mr. Inman remembers 

 to have seen formerly about a dozen trees, only three stumps of 

 trees are now left. This looks as if the race of old original firs 

 was dying out. There are several trees scattered about the top 

 of Banner Down in one place, where the ground looks more " as 

 if it had been covered with these trees at one time than any 

 other place at the top of' the hill." 



There are no firs on Solsbury HiU. This may, perhaps, be well 

 explained by Solsbury having been in ancient times, according to 

 Mr. Earle, "the site of a weU-inhabited and populous British 

 city,"* which circumstance would necessarily have led to an early 

 clearance of any natural forest that grew on its summit and slopes. 

 Taking Mr. Inman's notes as a whole, I consider there is 

 evidence to show that these trees once existed in much larger 

 numbers; and, in connection with all that I have said in the 

 early part of this paper, sufficient to warrant the question — 

 "Was there not formerly, in prehistoric times, if not later, a 

 forest of Scotch firs covering all the hills by which Bath is 

 surrounded ? " 



I cannot but think the answer to this question, if answer be 

 possible, would be in the affirmative. 



* Bath Ancient and Modern, p. 9. 



