Alan A dler, age 10, of Philadelphia, Penna., for his questions

Why don't worms suffocate underground?

Lets use the old imagination and shrink ourselves down to worm size. We would look at the world from a worms eye view, except that a worm has no eyes. He has special cells in his pink skin which let him know the difference between light and darkness. He can sense shadows and brilliant sunlight   and to him, it is safer to be in the shade. Anyway, lets pretend he can see like we do and look at things down in his world.

In our worms s eye world, the shadow of a gold ball is as big as a house. We now see that the ground, which looked so solid, is made of crumbs of soil. True, in some places the crumbs are tightly packed together to form solid clay. But in the fields and gardens where a worm lives, they are loosely tumbled.

Here and there we see fragments of decaying leaves that look like wads of fabric between the crumbs. To the worm, they are big as sheets, and much better because they are good to eat. There are also pebbles scattered through the sand and grains of sand which now seem to be as big as teacups.

From our worms eye view, we soon see that the soil is not nearly as solid as it seems to be from a people's eye view. And all the little crumbs of soil, the pebbles and bits of debris are separated by countless pockets of air   good breathable air.

The air at the surface of the ground is pressed down by the atmosphere which reaches hundreds of miles above our heads. It is pressed down into all those little holes in the soil which are too small for human eyes to see. If you stick even a pin into the soil and remove it, the air rushes in to fill the tiny hole.

Countless small earth dwellers use this air in the soil. It is necessary to the roots of plants. Tiny one celled algae live in the soil in countless numbers. They use the carbon dioxide given out by the worms and other animals. In return, they add oxygen to the ground air. Decay bacteria teem in the soil, always busy breaking down old leaves and waste materials into simple chemicals, They use up oxygen and return carbon dioxide to the ground air.

Mr. Pinky breathes oxygen as we do and returns carbon dioxide to the air. In the ground air, there is a constant exchange of these gases. The animals give out carbon dioxide which is used by the plants. The plants give out oxygen, which is used by the animals. This wonderful give and take provides Mr. Pinky with all the fresh air he needs.

The worm takes in his oxygen through his pink skin, for he has no nose. As he burrows underground, there is always some part of his body near a small pocket of ground air and his burrow, of course, is filled with air. So Mr. Pinky rarely if ever suffocates for want of air in the ground. But he may drown. A heavy rain often fills the holes in the soil and drives out the air. When it fills Mr. Pinky's burrow, he crawls up to the ground where he can get the air he needs.