46 THE MODERN PERIOD. 



the cementing material of the mass ; and their wooden handles had 

 been perfectly petrified or converted into a hard fibrous brown 

 linionite, still retaining the structure of the wood. The deposit was 

 probably a cache or hiding-place of valuable booty in the early 

 French and Indian wars ; and serves, among other things, to show 

 the comparatively perishable character of iron implements as compared 

 with those of stone, and the short space of time which under certain 

 circumstances may give to modern objects the aspect of hoar antiquity. 



One of the questions in connexion with pre-historic times which 

 lias recently been discussed in Europe, has been the disappearance 

 and renewal of forests in connexion with the succession of races 

 of men. Though the subject was not noticed in the first edition of 

 this work, I had some years previously, in the Edinburgh New 

 Philosophical Journal, directed attention to it, and now reproduce 

 portions of the article, as furnishing useful data to those who, on 

 evidence of this kind, are endeavouring to calculate the antiquity of 

 pre-historic man in Europe. 



In their natural state, Nova Scotia and the neighbouring provinces 

 were covered with dense woods, extending from the shores to the 

 summits of tlie hills. These woods did not form detached groves, 

 but constituted a nearly continuous sheet of foliage, the individual 

 trees composing which were so closely placed as to prevent them 

 from assuming full and rounded forms, and to oblige them to take 

 tall and slender shapes, that each might obtain air and light. The 

 only exceptions to this are certain rich and usually light soils, where 

 the forest is sometimes more open, and hills too rocky to support 

 a covering of trees. When viewed from the summit of a hill, the 

 forest presents a continuous undulating surface of a more or less 

 dark colour and uneven form, in proportion to the prevalence of the 

 deep colours and hard outlines of the evergreen coniferaj, or of the 

 lighter tints and rounded contours of the deciduous trees ; and these 

 two classes are usually arranged in belts or irregular patches, con- 

 taining mixtures of trees corresponding to the fertility and dryness 

 of the soil. In general, the deciduous or hardwood trees pi-evail 

 on intervale ground, fertile uplands, and the flanks and summits of 

 slaty and trappean hills ; while swamps, the less fertile and lightest up- 

 land soils, and granitic hills, are chiefly occupied by coniferous trees. 



The forest trees spring from a bed of black vegetable moidd, whose 

 surface is rendered uneven by the little hillocks of earth and stones 

 thrown up by windfalls ; and which, though usually named "^Ghw^ 

 hills" are in reality the graves of departed members of the forest, 

 whose trunks have mouldered into the mossy soil. These cradle 



