v] OF EVOLUTION 41 



Scrope's wife became a confirmed invalid and he had 

 no child to succeed to the estate. Though cut off 

 by other duties from the geological world, Scrope 

 maintained his correspondence with his old friend 

 Lyell, and, as we shall see in the sequel, was able to 

 render him splendid service by the luminous though 

 discriminating reviews of the Principles of Geology 

 in the Quarterly Review. Throughout his life, 

 however, Scrope preserved a love of geology, and 

 occasionally contributed to the literature of the 

 science ; and in his closing years, when unable to 

 travel himself, he gave to others the means of carry- 

 ing on the researches in which he had from the first 

 been so deeply interested. 



Fortunately for science, Lyell's devotion to 

 geological study was not, like Scrope's, interrupted 

 by the claims made upon him by social and political 

 questions. Feeling though he did, with his friend, 

 the deepest sympathy in all liberal movements, and 

 being especially interested in the reform of educa- 

 tional methods, his geological work always had the 

 first claim on his time and attention, and nothing was 

 allowed to interfere with his scientific labours. 



Charles Lyell was the eldest son of a Scottish 

 laird, whose forbears, after making a fortune in India, 

 had purchased the estate of Kinnordy in Strathmore, 

 on the borders of the Highlands. Lyell's father was 



