From Archibald Geikie 10 October 1881
Edinburgh
10th. Octr. 1881
Dear Mr. Darwin
I have to offer you my sincere thanks for the copy of your volume on “Vegetable Mould” which has just reached me, and which I shall at once read.1 Since you wrote to me on the subject of the action of the Earth-worm in 1871 I have watched the operations of the animal with keen interest and have convinced myself of its importance in such a humid country as ours.2
A recent journey through the western territories of N. America has suggested to me that without in any way undervaluing the action of the earth-worm, we are apt to neglect too much the growth of soil by wind-transport.3 The enormous extent of the superficial disintegration of rocks in a dry climate with a daily range of temperature often exceeding 70o. astonished me and raised in my mind the question whether on a minor scale the same phenomena and the associated denudation & transport by wind might not have more geological importance here than we have supposed.
Yours very truly | Arch Geikie
Footnotes
Bibliography
Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.
Geikie, Archibald. 1868b. On modern denudation. Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow 3: 153–90.
Geikie, Archibald. 1924. A long life’s work: an autobiography. London: Macmillan and Co.
Summary
Thanks for Earthworms.
Importance of wind in soil formation and transport.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13387
- From
- Archibald Geikie
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Edinburgh
- Source of text
- DAR 165: 26
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13387,” accessed on 6 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13387.xml