158 NUMBER OF WORMS. Chap. III. 



Place was sandy soil includiug many bits of 

 rock, and at Stonetenge, chalk-rubble with 

 broken flints; considering, also, the presence 

 of the turf-covered sloping border of mould 

 round the great fragments of stone at both 

 these places, their sinking does not appear to 

 have been sensibly aided by their weight, 

 though this v?as considerable.* 



On the number of worms which live within 

 a given space. — We will now show, firstly, 

 what a vast number of worms live unseen by 

 us beneath our feet, and, secondly, the actual 

 weight of the earth which they bring up to 

 the surface within a given space and within 

 a given time. Hensen, who has published so 

 full and interesting an account of the habits 

 of worms,f calculates, from the number which 

 he found in a measured space, that there must 

 exist 133,000 living worms in a hectare of 



* Mr. R. Mallet remarks (' Quarterly Jouiiial of Geolog. Soc, 

 vol. xxxiii., 1877, p. 745) that " the extent to which the ground 

 beneath the foundations of ponderous architectural structures, 

 such as cathedral towers, has been known to become compressed, 

 is as remarkable as it is instructive and curious. The amount 

 of depression in some cases may be measured by feet." He 

 instances the Tower of Pisa, but adds that it was founded on 

 " dense clay." 



t ' Zeitschrift fur wissensoh. Zoolog.' Bd. xxviii., 1877, p. 354 



