48 THE COMING [CH. 



1874) I visited with him the several localities, to 

 ascertain what amount of waste had resulted from 

 the constant flow of water over these hard rocks. It 

 was in most cases singularly small, the inscriptions 

 being still visible, though deprived of their sharpness ; 

 even the sandy detritus carried along by the streams, 

 being buoyed up by the water, had not been able in 

 half a century to wear away a thickness of half-an- 

 inch of the hard rock. The most singular result 

 we noticed was, that the leaden small shot fired by 

 sportsmen, in the Highland tracts, whence these 

 streams flowed, had collected in great numbers in 

 hollows formed by the young geologist's inscriptions. 

 By his father's request, Lyell after leaving Oxford 

 studied for the bar, but there is no doubt that his 

 main interest was in geological study. He had made 

 the acquaintance of Dr Mantell, and carried on 

 a number of researches in the south of England 

 either alone or with that geologist 38 . Four years 

 after joining the Geological Society, in which he was 

 a constant worker, he became one of the secretaries. 

 This was in 1823 when he was only 26 years of age. 

 His frequent visits to Paris and to various parts of 

 the continent enabled him to exchange ideas with 

 many foreign naturalists, and it is clear from his 

 correspondence that at this early period he had 

 abandoned the Catastrophic doctrines of his teachers 

 and friends. 



