1865.] JAMTESON LAST CHANGES IN SCOTLAND. ; 187 



and in the Western Isles Captain Thomas* has described how it has 

 accumulated round the ancient stone circles in the Lewis, so as in 

 some cases to envelope the stones completely, and even to cover the 

 tops of a few of them ; and he believes that these so-called Druidical 

 monuments were erected before the peat began to grow there. It 

 would seem that remains of trees are found at heights beyond where 

 wood can now be got to grow. Thus in the Transactions of the 

 Highland Society for March 1860, Mr. J. B. Webster, in a report 

 on planting-operations at Balmoral, states that he had found the 

 remains of old trees averaging from 6 to 12 inches in diameter 

 at an elevation of 2500 feet above the sea, on the mountain called 

 Lochnagar f; and Dr. Dickie, who has paid much attention to the 

 zones of altitude of British plants, remarks, in his ' Botanist's Guide 

 to the Counties of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine,' regarding the 

 Scotch Fir (Pmus sylvestris), *' The stems are to be seen in peat- 

 mosses at high altitudes, where such trees cannot grow at the pre- 

 sent day;" and in reference to the Birch (Betula alba)h.e says, " On 

 the summit of the ridge north of Mount Keen, and at an elevation 

 of 2200 feet, I have seen the dead remains of Birches far larger than 

 any growing at lower altitudes on other mountains of the district." 

 It may be said that the more generally wooded character of the sur- 

 face before mankind began to multiply may have contributed to 

 render the climate more favourable to forest vegetation. It is, how- 

 ever, clear that on the first disappearance of the ice, the trees must 

 have had to make their way over a surface destitute of wood. 



Although coniferous trees are not now indigenous to Orkney, yet 

 a submarine forest, consisting of remains of small Fir trees rooted in 

 their natural position, occurs in the Bay of SkaiU, on the west side 

 of Mainland Island, and is sometimes to be seen during ebb tide in 

 situations where the sea during flood rises at least 15 feet above it. 

 (See Edinburgh Phil. Journ. vol. iii. p. 101, 1820). 



It is to the time of this old land-surface with its forest vegetation 

 that the remains of the Irish Elk and the Great Wild Bull (Bospri- 

 migenius) seem mostly to belong, although the latter survived to a 

 later period ; for it is in the marl-beds below the peat that the skele- 

 tons of the Megaceros are generally found. Although its remains 

 are very rare in Scotland, yet they have been got. Thus in a marl- 

 bed underlying peat in the parish of Maybole, in Ayrshire, the skuU 

 and horns of one were found, measuring 10 feet 4 inches be- 

 tween the tips of the antlers, while the breadth of the palm of the 

 antler was 2 feet 7 inches. Horns of the stag, and remains of a 

 large ox with concave forehead (apparently Bos p7'imigennis), were 

 got along with it. (See Statistical Account of Parish of Maybole.) 



* Edinb. New Phil. Journ., new series, vol. xv. p. 235, 1862. 



t H. C. Watson, in his ' Cybele Britannica,' vol. ii. p. 410, says that the present 

 upper limit of the fir-woods on Lochnagar is at 1950 feet, and he cites Mr. 

 Winch for the fact of trunks of large Pines occurrhig in peat in the north of 

 England at an elevation of nearly 3000 feet. Mr. Watson further states that 

 roots of fir occur in peat at an elevation of 2400 feet and upwards on the ele- 

 vated tablelands of Forfar and .4.berdeen. 



