358 Sir Charles Li/ell. 



who was neither statesman, soldier, nor public orator, should arouse 

 our sympathies so strongly, or that he should be so highly esteemed all 

 over the world ; but geologists know well what Lyell has done for them 

 since he published the first volume of "The Principles of Geology" in 

 1830. 



"It is in the character of historian and philosophical exponent of geo- 

 logical thought that Lyell has achieved so much for our science : nor 

 can we fail to remember that those clear and advanced views, for which 

 he became so justly celebrated, were advocated by him forty -five years 

 ago, at a time when scientific thought was still greatly trammelled by a 

 strong religious bias, and men did not dare to openly avow their belief 

 in geological discoveries nor accept the only deduction which could be 

 drawn from them. 



"Born at Kinnordy, his father's seat near Kerriemuir, in Forfarshire, 

 on the 14th of November, 1797, Lyell received his early education at 

 a private school at Midhurst, and completed it at Exeter College, Ox- 

 ford, where he took his Bachelor's degree in 1819, obtaining a second- 

 class in Classical honors in Easter Term. On leaving the University, 

 he studied for the Bar, but never practised that profession, his tastes 

 having been led by Dr. Buckland's lectures to the study of geology as 

 a science. In 1824 he was eectled an Honorary Secretary of the Geolo- 

 gical Society of London, of which he was one of the earliest Fellows. 

 On the opening of King's College, London, a few years later, he was 

 appointed its first Professor of Geology. He had already contributed 

 some important papers to the "Transactions" of the Geological Society, 

 including one "On a Recent Formation of Freshwater Limestone in 

 Forfarshire, and on some Recent Deposits of Freshwater Marl, with a 

 comparison of recent Avith ancient Freshwater Formations, and an ap- 

 pendix on Gyrogonites, or Seed-Vessels of Chara;" also one "On the 

 Strata of the Plastic Clay Formation exhibited in the Cliffs between 

 Christchurch Head, Hampshire, and Studland Bay, Dorsetshire ;" an- 

 other "On the Freshwater Strata of Hordwell Cliff, Beacon Cliff, and 

 Barton Cliff, Hampshire ;" and an elaborate paper on the "Belgian 

 Tertiaries." In 1827 he contributed to the Quarterly a review of Mr. 

 Poulett Scrope's "Geology of Central France" (the perusal of which 

 is said first to have stimulated him to prepare and publish "The Prin- 

 ciples of Geology" on which his reputation as a philo.sophical writer 

 mainly rests). These lesser works all showed a power of observation 

 and of generalization which prepared the learned world for some 

 greater and more important treati.-:e from his pen, which should deal, 

 not with local details, but with the general principles of the science. 

 Nor were they disappointed when his ^nagnmn opus, "The Principles of 



