106 FAMILIAR TREES 
“is identical with that of the Sanskrit bdké, letter, 
békés, writings; and this correspondence of the 
Indian and our own language is interesting as 
evidence of two things, viz. that the Brahmins had 
the art of writing before they detached themselves 
from the common stock of the Indo-European race 
in Upper Asia, and that we and other Germans 
have received alphabetic signs from the East by a 
northern route, and not by the Mediterranean.” 
This last remark of the learned Doctor’s refers, of 
course, to our old black-letter Gothic characters and 
not to our modern Roman alphabet. 
As to the name Fagus, it is possible that this 
may be of Celtic origin; and, in the time of Pliny, 
the Britons, as well as the Gauls, may, as he de- 
scribes, have mixed the ashes of Beech-wood with 
goat’s-fat to make a red dye tor their hair and 
moustaches; or this name may then have per- 
tained to the Sweet Chestnut, to which tree Cesar 
may have referred when he wrote that in Britain 
there was every kind of timber as in Gaul, except 
“fagum” and the Fir. 
The Beech requires a thoroughly drained soil, 
and accordingly flourishes on high ground, whether 
calcareous or sandy. Its grey stems may thus be 
seen—often of great girth—throwing out their 
spreading roots on the earthworks of an ancient 
British camp on the greens and hills of Kent, as 
at Oldbury, near Ightham, while but a few miles 
off a fine clump crowns the conspicuous chalk 
summit of Knockholt; and in Surrey we have as 
fine trees on the sands of Haslemere, Hascombe, 
