JF Ptak Science Books     Part of the series on the History of Lines

Seems like an easy topic–it isn’t.  

Perhaps there are no more “basic” a collection of lines than those made in sand, either at the beach, in water, or in the desert, created by water or wind, changes to the surface of a mass at the intefave of the fluid.  They seem to be about as basic as things can be, line-wise, or at least in lines that can be found in nature and not made by humans.   These lines are called “ripples”, and ripples have numerous names and classifications.  Not  many, though, in 1883, where I found this lovely article in Nature by Charles Darwin’s son, George.  (This is a shorter version of a 25-page earlier paper “On the Formation of Ripple-mark in Sand,”  In the Proceedings of the Royal Society, November 22, 1883, vol. 36.)

It  is a wonderful thing this thinking on the movement of sand, and dirt, these wave-formed ripples, created in forms straight, sinuous, cantenary, lingoid.  It also is followed closely in by George Darwin’s article on the formation of mudballs (volume 27, page 507). Who could not but read an article like that? 

Also it brought to mind his father’s Power and the Movement in Plants, and specifically a letter to the editor of Nature in the April 28, 1881 issue of Nature, “The Movements of Leaves” in response to bright light…)