For when last the Scotch fir was indigenous to
England, and, mixed with the larch, stretched in one vast forest from
Norfolk into Wales, England was not as it is now. Snowdon was, it
may be, fifteen thousand feet in height, and from the edges of its
glaciers the marmot and the musk ox, the elk and the bear, wandered
down into the Lowlands, and the hyena and the lion dwelt in those
caves where fox and badger only now abide. And how did the Scotch
fir die out? Did the whole land sink slowly from its sub-Alpine
elevation into a warmer climate below? Or was it never raised at
all? Did some change of the Atlantic sea-floor turn for the first
time the warm Gulf Stream to these shores; and with its soft sea-
breezes melt away the 'Age of Ice,' till glaciers and pines, marmots
and musk oxen, perspired to death, and vanished for an aeon? Who
knows? Not I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. Whether, as
we hold traditionally here, the Scotch fir was re-introduced by James
the First when he built Bramshill for Raleigh's hapless pet, Henry
the Prince, or whatever may have been the date of their re-
introduction, here they are, and no one can turn them out.
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