OAK SUITED FOR SCOTLAND. 195 



in several transverse sections before it was possible to 

 remove it from the bed wliere it had probably re- 

 clined for ages. This happened in a part of the 

 country so far from being noted for its fertility, 

 that it is situated in what has, not unaptly, been 

 termed the " barren zone " of Aberdeenshire ; and 

 the subsoil of the very spot where the tree had 

 grown, was that sort of blue clay which is impervi- 

 ous to water, and is considered by agriculturists as 

 very poor and unproductive. The above and other 

 specimens have come under my notice by chance, 

 as it w^ere, and without my having ever resided, for 

 any considerable length of time, in parts of the coun- 

 try where peat-mosses are very abundant. 



The quantity of oak which at one time or other 

 has been thus dug up in Scotland, amounts to more, 

 perhaps, than could, at the present day, be collected 

 from the forests of both the United Kingdoms. How 

 well, then, must the Scottish woods have been ori- 

 ginally stocked with this sort of timber, since our 

 ancestors, with all their wasteful prodigality, could 

 not consume it so fast as it came to maturity ; but 

 left much of it to be annihilated by the process of 

 natural decay, or rather to be embalmed, if we may 

 use the expression, in the mosses which itself contri- 

 buted to form, that it might be disinterred in future 



N 2! 



