Glacial Soils 39 



are, it is true, fairly abundant and widely distributed, 

 but taken as a whole both the rocks and the widespread 

 glacial drift derived from them are non-calcareous, and 

 carry types of vegetation characteristic of "sdiceous" 

 soils. 



The soils of the lowlands up to about 1000 feet (c. 

 300 m.) have been almost entirely deposited 

 deposits. ^y moving water or ice, and the solid rock 



is exposed only here and there. Glacial 

 drift also frequently occurs above this altitude up to 

 2000 feet (c. 600 m.) in depressions or on terraces among 

 the hnis, while the summits and steeper slopes are largely 

 covered by local rock-debris. It is probably safe to 

 assume that about three-quarters of the surface-soil below 

 2000 feet is composed of this transported material, an 

 assumption supported by observations on the vegetation, 

 since the hmits of the different vegetation-units by no 

 means follow, at the lower elevations, the limits of the 

 rock-formations. 



Most of the glacial "boulder clay," and to some 

 extent also the sands and gravels, show a tendencj^ to 

 form an acid humous soil or an acid and relatively pure 

 peat. These humous and peat soils occur at all altitudes 

 up to about 3300 feet (c. 1000 m.), and according to 

 their different characters give rise to the different pre- 

 vailing types of "moorland" vegetation so characteristic 

 of the country. Thus CaZZwTio-heath occurs on the drier 

 humous soils, Callima^Tnoor on the drier peats, moors 

 characterised by Eri(yphorum, Scirpus csespitosus or 

 Sphagnum on deep wet peat, wet grassland or grass 

 moor characterised by Molinia cserulea, Nardus stricta 

 and Juncixs squarrosits on the peaty sods with more 

 mineral content but still forming acid peaty humus, and 

 dry grassland on the less peaty and drier soils. On the 

 whole the wet moors and wet grasslands are typical of 

 the wetter cHmate of the west, while the heaths, Galluna 



