[ 33 ] 
the wood : the poor people in thofe parts ufe fmall 
pieces of them for candles. 
There were, however, no fir woods near any of 
thole places, in the Highlands, where I happened to 
fee thele fubterraneous trees j and, indeed, the indi- 
genous ones are by no means fo common as is ge- 
nerally apprehended. 
Though what I have lafl mentioned may, perhaps, 
make many irnagine, that the timber found under 
ground muft have been fome other tree, which hill 
continues to grow in the neighbourhood ; yet I think 
there may be two caufes affigned, why thefe bog-firs 
may be found in places where there is no fuch tree 
at prefent. 
The firfl is, that no pine or fir ever fhoots from 
the ftool ; and the fecond, that, being a relinous 
wood, it is very eafily fet on fire by lightning, after a 
dry fummer; and thus whole trads of them may be 
deftroyed without their revegetating. 
I was, indeed, informed by an old man at Ranoch- 
Bridge, that his grandfather ufed to mention a tradi- 
tion of the fir wood in that neighbourhood having 
continued burning for a confiderable time, and that 
the Irifh came over to fee the conflagration. 
A wood of this kind is flill growing near the 
weftern end of Loch Ranoch, but it is feven or eight 
miles from the place where 1 faw the fubterraneous 
trees, near which there was fcarcely any other wood 
but birch. 
There feems to be little doubt, therefore, that the 
fir was formerly an indigenous tree in the northern 
parts of England j nor does this contradidt any of the 
VoL. LIX. F rules 
