3 2o THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



as we shall see, this entailed vast destruction of timber. But 

 it was no single furnace that met the needs of the country. 

 Remains of old iron workings, heaps of slag and charcoal, 

 show that throughout Scotland, even on the wild wastes of 

 the Highlands, the manufacture of iron was practised. 



Of well defined traces of such workings, still recognizable 

 thirty years ago, Prof. W. Ivison Macadam recorded no less 

 than ninety-eight, scattered throughout thirteen counties of 

 Scotland, from Sutherland to Dumfries ; and certainly as 

 many more have gone unrecorded or have disappeared with 

 the passing of time and the disturbance of the soil by 

 cultivation. 



The number and distribution of the iron workings are of 

 no small interest as showing the extent of the industry, and 

 also as indicating the distribution of woodland in Scotland in 

 past times (see Map IV). For it was an axiom of the smelters 

 that since iron was more compact and portable than timber, 

 it should be carried to the places where wood for its re- 

 duction grew thickest. The effect upon Scottish forests of 

 the continuous manufacture of charcoal on a large scale, 

 through some three thousand years, can better be imagined 

 than described. Yet the traces left by time and the hints 

 of the law and other records are sufficiently striking. 



At Esmore, in Argyllshire, charcoal ash still covers 

 several acres of ground. At Letterewe in Ross-shire, 

 English miners wrought a mine, casting cannon and other 

 implements "untill," as the Letterfearn manuscript quaintly 

 says "the woods of it was spent and the lease of it expired" 

 in the early years of the seventeenth century. In England 

 in i 556 Queen Elizabeth prohibited iron-smelting in Sussex, 

 on account of the amount of wood which was being felled 

 for the casting of cannon. The result was to stimulate the 

 industry of cannon-casting in other counties ; so that eventu- 

 ally there also, the felling of trees had to be prohibited, as 

 was the case in the Ulverston district of Lancashire in 

 1563, when there was passed "A Decree for the abolishing 

 of Bloomeries [as the slag-furnaces were called] in High 

 Fumes." 



Unfortunately these restrictions caused the iron smelters 

 to migrate to Scotland, to the ruin of the Scottish forests. The 

 effect was apparent in an Act of the Scottish Parliament of 



