;S'iV Charles Lyell. 361 



"Sir Charles Lyell has been so long and so honorably known among 

 the scientific teachers of the time, that though he had arrived at his 

 seventy-eighth year, and the period of his chief intellectual and physi- 

 cal activity had long passed away, probably even the younger men of 

 the present generation will feel that science is poorer by his loss. 



"At the meeting of the Geological Society of London, held in the 

 Society's room, Burlington House, Picadilly, on Wednesday last (Feb- 

 ruary 24th), the President, John Evans, Esq., F. R S., before com- 

 mencing the business of the meeting, alluded to the great loss which 

 all present had sustained. He little expected, when speaking on the 

 last occasion, at the Anniversary Meeting, of the services wdiich Su- 

 Charles Lyell had rendered to science for the previous fifty years, that 

 he should have on the present occasion to announce and lament his ir- 

 reparable loss. Sir Charles Lyell had been a titie philosopher and a 

 sincere friend. He had lived to see the extension of science which he 

 had so eagerly desired realized. In future times, wherever the name 

 of Lyell shall be known, it will be as that of the greatest, the most 

 philosophical, the most enlightened geologist of Great Britain or 

 Europe. 



"In accordance with the wish of the Council of the Koyal Society, 

 Sir Charles Lyell will rest beside his old friend and fellow-laborer in 

 science. Sir John Herschel, in Westminster Abbey." 



We add the following appi-eciative remarks from Nature of March 

 4th. 



"Lyell's claim of fame lies in this, that he organized the whole meth- 

 od of inquiry into the history of the formation of the crust of the earth, 

 and established on a sound footing the true principles of geological 

 science; his theory being that, by the uniform action of forces such as 

 are now in operation, the visible crust of the earth has been evolved 

 from previous states. 



"Lyell was not only a keen investigator of natural phenomena; he 

 was also a shrewd observer of human nature, and his four interesting 

 volumes of travel in America are full of clever criticism and sagacious 

 forecasts. His mind, always fresh and open to new impressions, by 

 sympathy drew towards it and quickened the enthusiasm of all who 

 studied nature, Had he done nothing himself, he would have helped 

 science on by the warmth with which he hailed each new discovery. 

 How many a young geologist has been braced up for new eiforts by the 

 encouraging words he heard from Sir Charles, and how many a one 

 has felt exaggeration checked and the faculty of seeing things as they 

 are strengthened by a conversation with that keen sifter of the true 

 from the false ! 



