150 TRANSACTIONS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
At the end of the village is a large sawmill, with a yard well filled 
with stacks of newly cut timber, and many huge logs were lying about, 
waiting their turn to be converted into planks. 
The sandy road leading to the forest which we now entered, was 
deeply furrowed by the wheels of heavy timber wagons, and the sharp 
ring of the axe, the sound of voices, and now and then the crash of a 
falling tree told us that the foresters were at work, and the air was 
laden with the sweet perfume of bruised pine branches. With the 
exception of a few birch trees, rowans, and alders near the village, or 
fringing the streams, the forest is entirely composed of the Scotch Fir, 
a tree so stiff and formal in its youth, but so grand in its maturity. 
When fully grown its strong and graceful form makes it a pleasing 
contrast in any landscape, but perhaps it is seen to best advantage 
when standing alone, or in groups on the fringe of a moor against a 
background of purple hills, and when in addition the rays of a low 
western sun strike the upper branches and set them aglow as if with 
fire, a lovely picture is complete. 
The trees which first met our gaze to-day were comparatively 
young, but they have sprung from an ancient stock, and stand upon 
ground which has been wild since the earliest ages—they are the 
representatives, through a long line of ancestors, of that great Silva 
Caledofiia which once covered the greater part of Scotland. 
Many records of its past glory are stored up under the turf of the 
highest hills, and the streams which cut their way through the peat 
mosses in the valleys are every day revealing roots and trunks of 
oaks, firs, and birches which flourished a thousand years ago. The 
sight of these relics gives zest to the imagination, already fired by 
strange tales and legends of wild men and wild beasts, the former 
denizens of this old wood. Through its glades once roamed the 
wild oxen of snowy whiteness, with manes like lions, as described 
by Boethius, wild boars crunched acorns under its giant oaks, and 
in its fastnesses the last British wolf was slain. 
Vicissitudes of many kinds have passed over it: it has been 
swept down by storm and tempest, devastated by fires, laid low by 
axe and saw, and for a while everything tended to destroy it, and 
nothing was done in reparation till about the end of the last century, 
when a reaction set in and the work of restoration was begun. 
jMillions of young trees have now been planted, existing trees pre¬ 
served and cared for, and the forest bids fair to regain some of 
its former grandeur and to be a source of profit instead of waste. 
It is seen to-day as a restored ruin, with its trees in all stages of 
growth, from the small seedling, struggling for light through a tangle 
of heather, to the hoary stump which, discarded by the axeman, and 
spared by the storm, is slowly crumbling into dust. 
