372 THE SCOTCH FIR, OR PINE. 



Gordon Castle, is six feet two inches long, and five feet 

 five inches broad, with the texture of the finest Eed-wood 

 Pine, and showing annual growths to the number of two 

 hundred and thirty-five. The spot was visited about 

 twentj^-five years since by Mr. Selby, who thus describes 

 its appearance : " Scattered trees, some of which were in 

 a scathed or dying state, of huge dimensions, picturesque 

 in appearance from their knotty trunks, tortuous branches, 

 and wide-spreading heads, were seen in different directions, 

 at unequal and frequently at considerable distances from 

 each other, — the solitary and mournful-looking relics of the 

 departed glories of this once well-clad woodland scene, 

 and which had only escaped the axe from their previous 

 decay or the comparative worthlessness of their knotty 

 trunks ; while the surface of the ground in almost every 

 direction was littered and bristling with the decaying tops 

 and loppings of the felled trees, among which mosses of 

 various species were growing with a luxuriance we never 

 saw equalled — nourished, it would appear, and encouraged 

 by the partial stoppage and stagnation of the surface-water 

 thus impeded in its course, and threatening to convert a 

 large proportion of the surface that had once been forest 

 into a' peat moss." Sir T. D. Lauder, describing the same 

 scene, says : " Many gigantic skeletons of trees, above 

 twenty feet in circumference, but which had been so far 

 decayed at the time the forest was felled as to be unfit 

 for timber, had been left standing, most of them in pro- 

 minent situations, their bark in a great measure gone, — 

 many of them without leaves, and catching a pale un- 

 earthly-looking light upon their grey trunks and bare 

 arms, which were stretched forth towards the sky like 

 those of wizards, as if in the act of conjuring up the storm 

 which was gathering in the bosom of the mountains, and 

 which was about to burst forth at their call." 



Tradition favours the Pine's being considered a native 

 Forest Tree of England as well as of Scotland. Gerard 

 says : " I have scene these trees growing in Cheshire, 



