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Cirencester

(1) When the Roman pavement has been cleared & exposed, do the earth-worms bring up their castings or pellets of earth to the surface, so that the pavement has occasionally to have swept brushed? If so, has the pavement to be swept once, twice or oftener during the year? Can it be remembered whether such worm-castings were brought up to the surface soon after the pavements were found exposed?

(2) Is the tesselated pavement quite level, or have parts or single tiles subsided a little? were they washed down [2 words illeg]

(3) Is it accurately known how deeply the pavements were covered with earth & stones: was the covering

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chiefly stones or fine earth?

(4) Round the margins of the excavations are very little cliffs still left, by which I could see the thickness & nature of the matter which covered the pavements & basements of the walls — before any excavations were made.—

C. Darwin

Aug. 23d 1877.