LYELL 



1797-1875 



y\ T the time when England won the great naval sea- 

 * fights of St Vincent and Camperdown, when the 

 Spanish, French, and Dutch fleets were defeated, there was 

 born on 14th November 1797, Charles Lyell, the future 

 geologist of Great Britain. 



He was the eldest son of Charles Lyell of Kinnordy, 

 in Forfarshire. His father was an extensive landed 

 proprietor, and a man of scientific and literary pur- 

 suits. Lyell pere was an ardent botanist and trans- 

 lator of Dante's Vita Nuova and Convito ; and Lyell 

 fils had a liking for entomology, which he cultivated to 

 his heart's content in the New Forest, his parents 

 having removed to that neighbourhood soon after his 

 birth. 



He was educated at Midhurst and at Exeter College, 

 Oxford, where he graduated in 1819 the same year that 

 saw the birth of Queen Victoria. At the university he 

 had the good fortune to attend the lectures of Dr William 

 Buckland, the founder of English geology, and which 



104 



