The Origin of our British Flora 



the heather moors, grass-heath, or cotton-grass, which 

 are sharply marked out from the cultivated land or 

 permanent pasture. 



One can also see the relative value of the land, what 

 part of it is promising for plantation, and the amount of 

 peat-moss or other really useless country. But unfor- 

 tunately this is a matter which requires skilled botanists 

 and money, so that at present but a very small part of 

 Britain has been botanically surveyed. 



However, the main point which these survey maps 

 bring out very clearly is the fact that pine forest does 

 not occupy the interval between the summit floras and 

 cultivation. 



But besides this present-day survey, there are the 

 researches of Mr. Clement Reid and Dr. Lewis, who 

 have studied the Scotch peats and other glacial and 

 pre-glacial beds. From these we find indisputable 

 evidence of the Scotch pine forest which we would have 

 expected. 



On the desolate Merrick hills in the southern Scotch 

 uplands, and at 800 to 1000 feet altitude, Dr. Lewis 

 found the remains of a forest of well-grown Scotch pines 

 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter where to-day there is 

 scarcely a shrub 3 feet high. 



On Tweedsmuir and the Moorfoots similar birch or 

 pine forests w T ere discovered buried in the peat and 

 whose existence was quite unsuspected. 



Dr. Lewis found similar relics in various places in the 

 Highlands. In fact his researches make it certain that 

 there was once a splendid forest of Scotch pine covering 

 those parts of Scotland where we would have expected 

 them, if this succession of dryas, birch, and pine really 

 existed. 9 



In the peat-mosses and flows at lower altitudes there 

 is, or used to be, plenty of oak logs, which show that 



225 p 



