Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

t forsaken, for in March, 1819, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, and about the same time joined the Linnean Society. Before very long his legal stud

n geology, for the travellers spe

antell suggested that the "blue marl"[9] in Compton Chine is identical with that at Folkestone, and compared the underlying strata with those in Sussex, clearing up some confusions, into which earlier observers had fallen, about the Wealden and Lower Greensand. He was now evidently beginning to get a firm grip on the subject-a thing far from easy in days when so little had been ascertained-and this year he read his first papers to the Geologica

240 tons." In the last letter written to his father before quitting England he refers to our neighbours across the Channel in the following terms: "My opinion of the French people is that they are much

in Parisian society at present that every other man one meets is either minister or ex-minister. So frequent have been the changes. The instant a new ministry is formed, a body of sappers and miners is organised. They work industriously night and day. At last the ministers find that they are supplanted by the very arts by which a few months ago they raised themselves to power."[10]

all. Afterwards Lyell went to Scotland, where he was joined by Professor Buckland; and the two friends, after spending a few days in Ross-shire, went to Brora, and then returned from Inverness by the Caledonian canal. This gave them the opportunity of examining the famous "parallel roads" of Glenroy, which were the more interesting because they had already seen something of the kind near Cowl, in Ross-shire. Afterwards they went up Glen Spean and

them one of the most important, though it was not printed in their journal, described a dyke of serpentine which cut through the Old Red Sandstone on the Kinnordy estate.[12] But, as is shown by a letter to his sister, written in the month of November, he had not lost his interest in entomology. At that time the collectors of insects in Scotland were very few in number, and the English lepidopterists welcomed the specimens which Lyell and his sister had caught

That the earth is quite as old as he [Lamarck] supposes has long been my creed, and I will try before six months are over to convert the readers of the Quarterly to that heterodox opinion."[14] A few lines further on come some sentences which indicate that the leading idea of the "Principles" was even then floating in his mind. "I am going to write in confirmation of ancient causes having been the same as modern, and to show that those plants and animals, which we know are becoming preserved now, are the same as were formerly." Hence, he proceeds to argue, it is not safe to i

he says, write an elementary book, like Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry," but something on a much larger scale evidently is floating on his mind. In this letter also he discusses his prospects with his father, who apparently had suggested that he should cease from going on circuit; and argues that he gains time by appearing to be engaged in a profession, for "

urchison, and the party left for Clermont Ferrand in a "light open carriage, with post horses." As far as Moulins the roads were bad, but as they receded from Paris and approached the mountains "the roads and the rates of posting improved, so that we averaged nine miles an hour, and the change of horses [was] almost as quick as in England. The politeness of the people has much delighted us, and they are so intelligent that we get much geology from them." Clermont Ferrand became their headquarters for some time, and Lyell's letters to his father are full of notes on the geology of the district, one of the most interesting in Europe. The great plateau which rises on the western side of the broad valley of the Allier is studded w

ther afield, visiting Pontgibaud and the gorge of the Sioul, where they found a section previously unnoticed, which gave them a clear proof that a lava-stream had dammed up the course of a river by flowing down into its valley, and had converted the part above into a lake. This again had been drained as the river had carved for itself a new channel, partly in the basalt, partly in the underlying gneiss. Here, then, was a clear proof that a river could c

ow began to suffer from the heat, for it was the middle of July. Nevertheless, they still pushed on southwards, and after visiting the old towns of Gard and the Bouches du Rh?ne, went along the Riviera to Nice, having been delayed for a time at Fréjus, where Murchison had a sharp attack of malarious fever. It was an exceptionally dry summer, and the town in consequence was malodorous; so after a short halt, they moved on to Milan and

dstones of Angus, and indicated that no extraordinary conditions-no deluges or earth shatterings-had been needed in order to form them. If the torrents from the Maritime Alps, as they plunged into the Mediterranean, could build up these masses of stratified pebbles, why not appeal to the same agency in Scotland, though the mountains from which they flowed, and the sheet of water into which they plunged, have alike vanished? The great flows of basalt-some fresh and intact, some only giant fragments of yet vaster masses-the broken cones of scoria, and the rounded hills of trachyte in Auvergne, had supplied him with links between existing volcanoes and the huge masses of trap with which Scotland had made him familiar; while these

was written before the friends parted, and was read at the Geological Society in the later part of the yea

econd evening, and a warm debate. Buckland and Greenough furious, contra Scrope, Sedgwick, and Warburton supporting us. These were the first two nights in our new magnificent apartments at Somerset House

d with the fauna still existing in the Mediterranean, and losing no opportunity of examining the ancient volcanic vents and the crater lakes, which form in places such remarkable features in the landscape. "The shells in the travertine," he writes, "

tration of Mont Dore." He made an excursion also to the Temples of P?stum, wonderful from the weird beauty of their ruins, on the flat plain between the Apennines and the sea, but with interest geological as well as arch?ological, because of the blocks of rough travertine with which their columns are built. These he studied, and he visited the quarries from which they were hewn. His letters frequently contain interesting references to the tyranny of the Government, "the inquisitorial suppression of all cultivation of science, whether moral or physical," the idle, happy-go-lucky habits of the common people, the prevalent mendicancy, universal dishonesty, and general corruption. One instance may be worth quoting-it indicates the material with which "United Italy " has had to deal. He wanted to pre-pay the postage of a letter to England. The head waiter at

olcano, the phenomena of which corresponded with those of Vesuvius, though on a grander scale. From Nicolosi, where he was delayed a day or two by the weather, Lyell went along the Catanian plain to Syracuse and southward to the extreme point of the island, Cape Passaro. From this headland he followed the coast westward as far as Girgenti, and then struck across the island in an easterly direction till he came within about a day's journey of Catania, and then he turned off in a north-westerly direction through the island to Palermo. In this zigzag journey, which occupied about five weeks, he succeeded in ob

analogies with those of Sicily than of Auvergne, and welcomed the news that the bones of an elephant had been found in an alluvial deposit which lay beneath the lava of an extinct Tuscan volcano. His not

ly confirmed in our views, although the new opinions must bring about an amazing overthrow in the systems which we were carefully taught ten years ago." The accurate knowledge of Deshayes, one of the most eminent conchologists of that day, was especially helpful in bringing his field work in Italy and Sicily into clear and definite ord

ions-views which seemed rank heresy to the older school, who sought to solve every difficulty by a convulsion, and were fettered i

to defend the 'Diluvialists,' as Conybeare styles his sect; and us he terms 'Fluvialists.' Greenough assisted us by making an ultra speech on the importance of modern causes.... Murchison and I fought stoutly, and Buckland

o the same correspondent in regard to th

d to term us, drew upon them on Friday a sharp volley of musketry from all sides, and such a broadside, at the finale, from S

similar account of the battle between the Diluvialists

be out with next spring. I begin with Sicily, which has almost entirely risen from the sea, t

TNO

The identification named abov

. p. 127. Some sentences (for the sake o

ted a Fellow of the R

ance consisted in proving that serpentine was, or rather had been, an igneous rock. If proper attention had b

Lewes, who made valuable contributions to the geology of South-East England, a

that he fully accepted the Huttonian doctrine of interpreting the geology of past ages by referen

rs, and Journals

s of Scotland." He was an excellent geologist on the mineralogical side, but had little

P. Scrope, the first edition of whose classic work, "

, the second of the illustri

r W. J.

of Alcimus Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne, about half a century later, have been interpreted as referring to volcanic er

rs, and Journals

rs, and Journals

rs, and Journals

rs, and Journals

] I

suprà,

Caves, Fissures, and Diluvial Gravel, and on other Geological Phenomena

suprà,