514 PREHISTORIC E UROPE. 



glacial and recent deposits of that country, there being only one 

 solitary recorded example of their occurrence, and that in the 

 south-west of Ayrshire. A strong forest-growth at length over- 

 spread the country, extending into every district, and reaching 

 even the remote regions of the Orkney and Shetland Islands and 

 the Outer Hebrides. It was while these genial climatic condi- 

 tions obtained that the Iberian plants found their way into the 

 south and west of Ireland, and the Gallican forms immigrated 

 across the area of the Channel to the south-east of Ireland and 

 the south of England. 



That the climate at this time was more genial than now is 

 proved by a variety of considerations. It is shown, in the first 

 place, by the former greater vertical and northerly range of 

 arboreal vegetation. In the now treeless regions of the Outer 

 Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and Northern 

 Norway, the peat-bogs have yielded abundant relics of a vigorous 

 forest -vegetation. Even the storm -swept Faeroes were at one 

 time covered with a bushy vegetation. During a recent visit to 

 those islands, in company with my friend Mr. Amund Helland, 

 I was much struck with the appearance in the peat of numerous 

 roots and branches which, in the absence of the bark, we could 

 not determine, although we thought they were most probably 

 juniper. None that we noticed exceeded the thickness of one's 

 wrist; but an intelligent trader told me he had frequently 

 seen them as thick as his arm, and sometimes even as thick as 

 his leg. At present the only shrubs in the islands are the few 

 which stand within the garden- walls at Thorshavn, where they 

 are carefully tended and protected. Yet the evidence of the 

 peat proves that in postglacial times the climate was such as 

 to permit of a plentiful growth of shrubs and small trees over 

 all the less considerable slopes of the islands. A similar tale is 

 told by the peat of Northern Norway ; and even in Spitzbergen 

 we are not without botanical testimony to the former prevalence 

 of a milder climate than the present. When the Eseroe Islands 

 were plentifully clothed with shrubs and small trees, they could 

 hardly have been subjected to the strong winds which now 



