My dear Sir

Pray accept my best thanks for your very kind present of your new work on the Formation of Vegetable Mould etc. which I have read with I need hardly say the greatest interest.¹ No one will any longer undervalue the “earth-worm” as a potent geological agent. Henceforward this lowly, organized worker will occupy an honourable place in all geological manuals and text-books.

Reading your book has reminded me of some incomplete observations of my own on certain marks of ancient cultivation which are very conspicuous in the upper reaches of many valleys on the Scotch side of the Cheviot Hills. The hill-slopes are there very distinctly marked with broad horizontal terraces which are evidently the work of man’s hand, and are connected with ancient ramps, ditches, and standing-stones in their neighbourhood. The terraces are made up of the loose surface-wash etc. of the hill-sides scraped together and spread out, and are covered with only an inch or two of soil. I should think that they would form a very interesting subject of study—apropos of the travelling-downward of soil upon grassy slopes. Should any of your sons think of visiting that country it would give me the greatest pleasure to afford them every information as to the places where the terraces are best seen. I have never met with any detailed description of them, and have always intended spending a few holidays in making a thorough exploration of them. But the Summers come and go, and that work still remains to be done. Had your work appeared earlier I should not have left the Cheviots without first having intersected & examined the terraces in many places.²

Again thanking you for your kind present & for the instruction I have received | Believe me | Yours respectfully | James Geikie