80 THE COMING [CH. 



sorrows, whose affection for me was truly that of a 

 father and brother combined 76 ." 



And Huxley speaking of Lyell, the day after his 

 death said, 'Sir Charles Lyell would be known in 

 history as the greatest geologist of his time. Some 

 days ago I went to my venerable friend, and put 

 before him the results of the Challenger expedition. 

 Nothing could then have been more touching than 

 the conflict between the mind and the material body, 

 the brain clear and comprehending all ; while the 

 lips could hardly express the views which the busy 

 mind formed 77 / 



How well do I recollect my last visit to Lyell a 

 day or two after this farewell interview with Huxley, 

 the glow of gratitude which lighted up the noble 

 features as with trembling lips he told me how 

 'Huxley had repeated his whole Royal Institution 

 lecture at his bedside/ 



Huxley was a most devoted student of Lyell. 

 Speaking to his fellow geologists in 1869 he said, 

 'Which of us has not thumbed every page of the 

 Principles of Geology 19 " ? ' and writing in 1887 on the 

 reception of the Origin of Species, he said : 



'I have recently read afresh the first edition of the Principles 

 of Geology and when I consider that this remarkable book had 

 been nearly thirty years in everybody's hands, and that it brings 

 home to any reader of ordinary intelligence a great principle and a 

 great fact the principle, that the past must be explained by the 



