Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

Forfarshire on November 14th, 1797, at Kinnordy, the family mansion. His father, who also bore the name of Charles,[1] was both a lover of natural history and a

an one species was named after him, as well as a genus of mosses, Lyellia, which is chiefly found in the Himalayas. Later in his life, science, on the whole, was supplanted by literature, a

o exceptionally warm that his mother's bedroom-window was kept open all the night-an appropriate birth-omen for the geologist, who had a firmer faith than some of his successors in the value of work in the open air. He has put on record only two characteristics of his infancy, and as these can hardly be personal recollections, we may assume them to have been sufficiently marked to impress othe

his place they removed to Weymouth and thence to Southampton. More than a year must have been thus spent, for their second child-also a son-was born at the last-named town. Mr. Lyell, the father, now took a lease of Bartley Lodge, on the New Forest-some half-dozen miles west

in a chaise behind. The horses of this took fright on a narrow part of the road and upset the carriage over a very steep slope. Fortunately all escaped unhurt, except one of the maids, whose arm was cut by the splintered glass. The parents ran to the rescue. "Meanwhile, Tom and I were left in the carriage. We thought it fine pasti

t Ringwood was a miniature "town and gown" row, a set fight between the lads of the place and of the school, from which, however, the Lyells were excluded as too young to share in the joys and the perils of war. But the fray was brought to a rather premature conclusion by the joint intervention of foreign powers-the masters of the school and the tradesmen of the town. In those days smuggling was rife on the south coast, and acting the part of re

g Lyells found it a change for the worse. At Ringwood they had an ample playground, close to which was the Avon, gliding clear and cool to the sea, a delightful place for a bathe. In a few minutes' walk from the town they were among pleasant lanes; in a short time they could reach the border of the New Forest. But at Salisbury the school was in the heart of the town, its playground a small yard surrounded by walls, and, as he says, "

the chief interest centred around a mysterious excavation in the earthwork, "a deep, long subterranean tunnel, said to have been used by the garrison to get water from a river in the plain below." To this all new-comers were taken to listen to the tale of its enormous depth and subterranean pool. Then, when duly overawed, they felt their hats fly off their heads and saw them rolling out of sight down the tunnel. An interval followed of blank dismay, embittered, no doubt, by dismal a

hts and shadows, winding here and there among tufts of holly scrub, always led on by the hope of some novelty-a rare insect fluttering by, a lizard or a snake gliding into the fern, strange birds circling in the air, a pheasant or even a woodcock springing up almost under the feet. The rabbits scampered to their holes among the furze; a fox now and again stole silently away to cover, or a stag-for the deer had not yet been destroyed-was espied among the tall brake. Those, too, it must be remembered, were the days when boys got their holidays in the prime of the sum

o work unless forced to it." So he began to collect insects-a pursuit which, as he remarks, exactly suited him, for it was rather desultory, gave employment to both mind and body, and gratified the "collecting" instinct, which is strong in most boys. He began with the lepidoptera, but before long took an interest in other insects, especially the aquatic. Fortunately his father had been for a time a collector, and possessed some good books on entomology, from the pictures in which Charles named his captures. This was, of course, an unscientific method, but it taught him to recognise the

elieve the generality, if they told the truth, would not like to have them over again, or would consider them as less happy than those which follow." He was not the kind of boy to find the life of a public school very congenial. Evidently he was a quietly-disposed lad, caring more for a country ramble than for games; perhaps a little old-fashioned in his ways; not pugnacious, but preferring a quiet life to the trouble of self-assertion. So, in his second half-year, when he was left to shift entirely for himself, his life was "not a happy one," for a good deal of the primeval savage lingers in the boys of a civilised race. It required, as he said, a good deal to work him up to the point of defending his independence; thus he was deemed incapable of resistance and was plagued a

ccasion, obtained a prize for his performance. "Every year afterwards," he continues, "I received invariably a prize for speaking, until high enough to carry off the prizes for Latin and English original composition. My inventive talents were not quick, but to have any is so rare a qualification that it is sure to obtain a boy at our great schools (and afterwards as an author) some distinction." E

e Charles was more or less a victim, and his progress up the school was not thereby accelerated. Birds'-nesting also had a turn in its season. His love for natural history made him so keen in this pursuit th

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ed at St. Andrew's and at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, wher

and Convito; a second edition was published in 1842;

rs, and Journal