Ɛpsilon

To T. H. Farrer   24 September [1877]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Sept. 24th

My dear Farrer

I am very greatly obliged to you for your worm-diary. Such a diary was never kept before, & it will be very useful to me, so as to give an abstract of it.— I had not the least expectation of your taking such extraordinary pains.— Before you leave Abinger for London, will you look once again to see how the worms go on.—2

I hope sometime that you will continue your explorations under an archæological point of view, though I hope so merely out of general curiosity.3

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from T. H. Farrer, 23 September 1877.
2
See letter from T. H. Farrer, 23 September 1877, enclosure, and n. 2. CD published extracts from Farrer’s observations of worm action at the site of a Roman villa in Abinger in Earthworms, pp. 186–9, including further observations made on 25 September and 13 October.
3
The site was left open and in 1880 Farrer made further observations of worm action there, but the excavations were not continued (Earthworms, p. 188; Malden ed. 1902–12, 3: 129–34).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11151,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11151