My dear M^r. Darwin,

Having got through the first month of the new year, and reached my 78^th. birth day, which event took place some time or other during last night, it seems time that I should write to you and enquire how the pains and pleasures of life are distributing themselves towards you and your belongings. Not that I have been altogether without tidings of you since you wrote to me from Cambridge; for I learnt from the R.E. at Chatham, when he was so good as to send me a most excellent photograph with your signature below it, that you might fairly boast of enjoying unusually good health; and since that time I have constantly pictured you to myself as resting from your late labours, while partaking of an ample share of ease cum dignitate at Down.¹ For myself I have been a good deal troubled these late months with an ailment which I am destined to bear with me to the last, and to bear it as best I can. It does, I think, besides an irritating uneasiness, induce a sort of inertness of mind, which makes all kinds of exertion physical or mental seem to be oppressive. And thus I fear that common duties, which ought to be performed, get neglected. If ever this happens in your case I feel sure that your good nature will forgive it.— But this is prosing indeed!— Oh! if I only had some news to give you, about myself, or any body else whom I knew you knew. What a godsend that would be for this sheet!— That heavy gale which passed over England last autumn, was not particularly vicious hereabout.² It left no evil traces in its passage through my shrubs and trees. But it produced a curious effect in one way upon my lawn, which it entirely covered with the dead leaves of a couple of pine trees (P. Insignis)³ that were blown out from under their branches, so that upon looking from my dressing room window in the morning it seemed as if the green grass had been turned brown by a thick dressing of mould. I had just read what you wrote about the way in which worms drag the needles, two in a sheath, of the P. Austriaca into their burrows, and went out to examine how they would tackle those of the P. Insignis, three in a sheath. During the night they had dragged in very many, almost all of them in the way you represented with the P.A. by the foot stalk, which forms rather a large knob in the leaves of these young and healthy trees—⁴ Three, however, I found drawn in, or rather attempted to be drawn in, by the point. In each case a single needle had been seized and drawn about an inch into the burrow, the sheath standing bolt upright with the other two needles fixed firmly in the ground by their points, and considerably bent down by the light draught of the one which had been pulled into the burrow.

One other remark I should like to venture suggested by your book on Earth Worms, which I have read over again with great interest this winter—about the “ledges on hill sides”, and their origin. Many years ago I used to travel daily up and down the first twenty miles from London on the S.W. R^y.⁵ which passes through a deepish cutting near about Wandsworth Common. After a continuance of wet weather there were constantly extensive slips of earth from top to bottom on the sloping sides; and the mold always lodged itself in ridges, exactly as on the Downs, which I had so often puzzled myself over, while attempting to explain their raison d’être to myself. After one of these slips the workmen would come and smoothe the surface down again. But after a time, with another succession of wet weather would come another slip over the same surface and leaving the earth in the same ridges. Having observed this action repeatedly it occurred to my mind that these ridges performed the part of buttresses in building, falling by some mechanical law, and if left alone instead of being smoothed off, that they would support the earth on the slope above, and prevent further slipping. Is it not possible that the ridges on the downs have been formed in this simple way at the time when the chalk downs were rising out of the water and still wet before they became indurated and covered over with grass? I have carried that notion in my mind for many years, but have never met with any one to whom I could suggest it. The temptation, however, to inflict it upon you after reading what you have said upon the subject was irresistable.

I have written upon the back of the sketch, which you flattered me by expressing a wish to possess, a due notification that it is to belong to you—and I am proud that you should think it worth having.—⁶

The tenants—a Marine Company of Insurance—of two houses on our Mons Sacra, the Hill of Corn, sent me the other day the Report of their half yearly meeting—by which I find that they declared a dividend at the rate of £27$\frac{1}{2}$ per cent for the half year’s gains.⁷

M^rs. Huxley sent me a very friendly letter after her return from the Lakes in the Autumn, and promised that I should hear from her again—a promise towards which I am looking forwards with hope and faith.⁸

Please to present my respects to M^rs. Darwin, and cordial good wishes to all of your sons who may be within sound of your voice⁹—and believe me to be | My dear M^r. Darwin | Very truly yours | Anthony Rich