PHYSICAL FEATURES. 



125 



it has been drawn up — from the decay and formation of our vast 

 peat-mosses, visible in its later stages in still hard roots and 

 trunks. In historic times, as we are informed in Menteith's 



Forester's Griiide : — 



' Through the whole extent, for upwards of nineteen miles, from 

 beyond Tyndrum to Tyanne on the Kiug's House, through the upper or 

 eastern portion of the Glenorchy division, decayed roots of trees, 

 many of them of large size, appear on each side of the road, in the 

 lower parts of the mountain sides, and in the intervening corries and 

 narrow dells ; and on the banks of the rivers also, patches of natural 

 fir, and other trees may be seen, affording the strongest indications 

 that the tract was formerly covered with a forest of wood. Indica- 

 tions of similar forests can hardly be questioned, as spreading over all 

 the valleys, hills, moors, and mosses of Scotland, although, in many 

 places, these marks are not so distinctly visible as in this quarter, 

 where the decay of a considerable part of the forest has been but 

 recent, and where some of it still exists. 



' Much of these extensive forests was cut down from various views, 

 chiefly to prevent their affording shelter and rallying points to those 

 who maintained the independence of the nation during the efforts that, 

 in difi'erent ages, were made to subdue the country ; as also a great 

 part perished by natural decay ; the pasturing of sheep and cattle on 

 the ground where they stood, and want of enclosure, effectually pre- 

 vented their reproduction in the highland parts of the country. A 

 ship of immense size having been constructed at Syracuse, by the 

 celebrated Archimedes, two hundred years before the Christian era, a 

 proper main-mast could nowhere be found for this ship but in the 

 mountains of Britain. The Emperor Severus employed, in the year 

 207, legions of auxiliary troops and natives in cutting down the forests 

 of Scotland, in which undertaking he is said to have lost 50,000 men, 

 probably from the pestilential effect of the swamps, as well as the 

 opposition of the Scots. At a much later period, 24,000 axes were 

 employed by John, Duke of Lancaster, for the purpose. Besides, large 

 woods in the north were cut down and burned by the Danes ; some 

 forests near Inveraray were destroyed by King Robert Bruce in an 

 expedition against Cummin ; and the following order by General 

 Monk, to cut down certain woods about Aberfoyle, is yet extant : — 

 "Whereas the woods of Milton and Glenshort, in Aberfoyle parish, are 

 great shelters to the rebels and mossers, and do thereby bring many 

 inconveniences to the country thereabouts ; these are to desire you, on 

 sight heireof, to give order for the cutting down of the woods with all 

 ])Ossible expedition, that so they may not any longer be a harbour or 

 shelter for loose, idle, and desperate persons ; and heireof you are not 

 to fayle. Given under my hand and seall, at Cardrosse, the 17th May 



