To A. C. Ramsay 17 June 1880
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
June 17th 1880
My dear Ramsay
Will you have the kindness to glance at your 2 enclosed notes (which for the love of Heaven return to me carefully) & answer me one simple question, viz whether any plants or weeds grew in the interstices of the stones, & secondly whether trees were near so that leaves often or ever were blown into the court.—1 I am putting together some notes on the action of worms & I find that naturalists differ much whether worms can live without obtaining dead vegetable matter from the surface,— indeed some deny that they get any nutriment out of the humus.— Your case of the little court interests me in other ways.—
I have not been lately in London, but during my two last visits I was so unlucky as to miss you in Jermyn St, & thus missed some pleasant talk2
Believe me | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin
I forget whether you have ever seen many worm castings in the court-yard, which I suppose is occasionally swept out.
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.
Summary
Notes on worm action, and CD’s questions concerning source of nutriment for worms in ACR’s courtyard [see Earthworms, pp. 192–3].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12638
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Andrew Crombie Ramsay
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 261.9: 11 (EH 88205984)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12638,” accessed on 4 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12638.xml