330 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



In the autumn of 1841 Lyell crossed the Atlantic, 

 and spent thirteen months in the United States, 

 Canada, and Nova Scotia. He worked hard as an 

 observer and recorder, and his comparisons between 

 the strata in the New and Old World are full of 

 interest. Writing from Philadelphia to his father- 

 in-law, Mr. Horner, he says, " Here I am working 

 away in quarries of greensand and picking up 

 belemnites and other cretaceous fossils ; " and 

 then to Dr. Mantcll, "After staying two days we 

 went by New York and the Hudson to Albany, 

 where I began my explorings in the silurian strata, 

 and from whence I examined the valley of the 

 Mohawk. The Falls of Niagara were as beautiful 

 as I expected, perhaps scarcely so grand, but in 

 geological interest far beyond my most sanguine 

 hopes. So I shall send a paper on the proofs of 

 their recession to the Geological Society. I will 

 not dwell on them now. After spending some 

 time there, I examined seriatim, all the silurian 

 groups and the old red and coal on the borders of 

 Pennsylvania. Returning to Albany, I went south 

 to Philadelphia, and spent four days in collecting 

 in the different divisions of the greensand, and in 

 New Jersey. The analogy of the genera, and even 

 of the species of the European chalk, is most 

 striking." 



One of his duties in the United States, was to 

 give a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, 

 at which his audiences amounted to two thousand. 

 He also went north, and made some most important 



