WOODS. 105 



SECTION V. WOODS. 



The designation of the superior officials entrusted with 

 the administration of the Forests of England is Her 

 Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Accord- 

 ing to the legal use of the term, as we have seen, there may 

 be forests in which there are no woods, and woods covering 

 an extensive area which are not forests : the one desig- 

 nation having reference to hunting-grounds belonging to 

 the Sovereign ; the other to more or less extensive clumps 

 of copsewood or of timber trees, and these may belong 

 either to the Sovereign or to private proprietors without 

 this circumstance affecting the name. 



A. Wistman's Wood. 



A remarkable Wood is one in Devonshire, high up in 

 Dartmoor, on the slopes of the West Dart, and comprised 

 within the area of Dartmoor Forest. It is known as 

 Wistman's Wood, and is almost the only piece of wood- 

 land within the forest. 



Dartmoor, supposed to derive its name from the river 

 Dart, which rises on the moor in the midst of a bog at 

 Cranmere Pool, is twenty-two miles in extent from north 

 to south, and fourteen from east to west, and is said to 

 comprise nearly 100,000 acres. It is thus described by 

 Dr Berger in the Geological Transactions: 



" From Harford Church (near the southern limit 

 of Dartmoor), the country assumes quite a bare and alpine 

 appearance, presenting a vast plain, extending beyond the 

 visible horizon. The face of the country is formed by 

 swellings and undulations gradually overtopping each 

 other, without ever forming distinct mountains. There is 

 no vegetation, and few human dwellings ; we tread upon 

 a boggy soil of very little depth, and scarcely affording 

 sufficient food to support some dwarf colts, as wild as the 

 country they inhabit." * 



* Geol. Trans, vol. i. 



