BRITISH POSTGIACIAL 6- RECENT DEPOSITS. 393 



a similar tale. But it is not only the geological position of the 

 forest-bed, but the character of the trees themselves that imply 

 a former wider extent of land. We can hardly suppose that a 

 dense arboreal vegetation would present itself along the im- 

 mediate margin of the sea. Such a position would be highly 

 unfavourable, and hence we may conclude that when the trees, 

 whose roots are found at and below the sea-level in the lower 

 reaches of the Carse of Gowrie, were flourishing, the sea-coast 

 must have been at a much greater distance than now — but at 

 what distance it may have been we shall not at present inquire, 

 as that is a question which falls to be considered later on. 



As to climatic conditions not much can be said. All the 

 plants hitherto observed in the peat are still indigenous to 

 Scotland, but we may certainly infer that the climate could not 

 have been less genial than it is to-day. As we shall presently 

 see, the probabilities are that it was even more genial, but siuce 

 this is a conclusion which is only arrived at upon a general 

 review of all the facts relating to the buried forests and sub- 

 marine peat of the British Islands and the opposite shores of the 

 Continent, we shall leave it to be discussed along with other 

 matters in the sequel 



Confining ourselves, then, to the evidence supplied by the 

 buried forest of the Tay and Earn, we find that we have every 

 reason to believe that the elevation of the land or retreat of the 

 sea, which marked the era immediately succeeding the depo- 

 sition of the estuarine beds of late glacial times, was equally 

 characteristic of what we may call the Age of Forests. Before 

 those forests had taken possession of the valleys the ancient 

 rivers had ploughed out and removed vast quantities of glacial 

 material, and their alluvial plains formed broad fiats overlooked 

 on one or both sides by the bluffs of the old 100-feet terrace. 

 All those wide plains became in time densely wooded — while a 

 thick growth of reed-like plants shot up upon the low alluvial 

 banks of the river. Large pine-trees and groves of birch grew 

 upon the neighbouring hill-slopes, while alder and willow formed 

 a thick copse on the lower and damper flats. At this time man 



