RECORD: Darwin, C. R. 1872. [Earthworm research notes]. CUL-DAR63.19-19a. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Prepared and edited by John van Wyhe 7.2025. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR63, CUL-DAR64 and CUL-DAR65 contain a diverse array of materials for Darwin's research on earthworms. All of the textual items in these folders, including this one, have been transcribed in a single file: CUL-DAR63-65.


19

Jan 24 /72

After last night extraordinary S.W storm & torrents of rain, most of Earth casting on lawn & on several fields, all were flat patches of level dirt, as if so much [illeg] had been spilt & had spread out. Several of them, showed open by open passages between blades of grass to leewards, washed how they had been blown in this direction — It is clear that such cakes of fluid dirt wd have been much influenced by gravity. — But on slope on mound on lawn, some had been blown up slope. (Pellets rolled by N. E. dry winds wd partly counterbalance this action.)

19a

(Some time ago I observed a very yellow casting on mud, when ∠ of 5°, & now (Jan. 28) after heavy rains, I found it has clearly flowed down slope, clear from colour.


Return to homepage

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

File last updated 6 July, 2025