364 MR J. GEIKIE ON THE BURIED FORESTS 



I. Trees in Peat, — Condition of the Country at the Period of their Growth. 



It is well known, that below many peat mosses of this and other countries, 

 the roots and trunks and branches of forest trees, and the remains of shrubs, are 

 of common occurrence. Our Scottish mosses have yielded the oak, the pine, the 

 birch, the hazel, the alder, the willow, the ash, the juniper, &c. ; but a greater 

 number of species are dug from the peat of more southern latitudes. No one 

 now doubts, that the vast majority of those trees and shrubs have grown in situ. 

 And as there are few parts of the country where buried trees have not been dis- 

 interred from peat or alluvium, the conclusion is forced upon us, that at some 

 period in the past our island must have been exceedingly well wooded. Even 

 the remote islands of the Hebrides appear to have had their groves of oak and 

 pine. Throughout the bleak Orcades and sterile Zetland, large trees have at one 

 time found a congenial habitat. Of the main-land it is difficult to say what district 

 has not supported its great forests. The bare flats of Caithness, the storm-swept 

 valleys of the Western Highlands, the desolate moory tracts of Perthshire and 

 the north-eastern counties, the peaty uplands of Peeblesshire and the Borders, 

 and the wilds of Carrick and Galloway, have each treasured up some relics of a 

 bygone age of forests. 



It is much to be regretted, that in noting the occurrence of the various trees 

 which our peat mosses have yielded, so little attention should have been paid to the 

 relative elevation of the species above the sea-level. Enough is known, however, 

 to assure us, that the pine and its congeners enjoyed a greater range in former times 

 than at the present day. Mr Watson gives " 600 yards and upwards" as the 

 elevation now reached by the Scotch pine. But he " has seen also small scattered 

 examples at 800 and even 850 yards of elevation." These last, however, he thinks, 

 had probably been planted. " But that the pine," he continues " has grown 

 naturally on the Grampians, at an equal elevation in former ages, is rendered 

 certain by the roots still remaining in the peat mosses of the elevated table lands 

 of Forfar and Aberdeen, at 800 yards and upwards."* Again, in Glenavon, 

 Banffshire, there are peat mosses, nearly 1000 yards above the sea, which contain 

 abundant roots of the pine.f In the north of England, at the same height, "roots 

 and trunks of very large pines are still seen protruding from the black peat." j 

 Mr Watson says the Scotch pine now ranges from Perthshire into Sutherland, 

 within latitudes 56-59°. § But in ancient times, it must have grown indiscrimi- 

 nately throughout the length and breadth of Britain, as we meet with it in many 

 of the English mosses, — those of southern as well as of northern regions. 



The common oak has a similar wide diffusion in our peat mosses. According 



* Cybele Britannica, vol. ii. p. 409. | Sinclaik's Stat. Ace. of Scotland, vol. xii. p. 451. 



J Mr Winch, quoted in Cybele Britannica, loc. cit. § Cybele Britannica, loc. cit. 



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