J. Button, J. Playfair, C. Lyell 311 



speculations on the causes of changes in the earth's physical 

 and organic history had their fallacies exposed by the work 

 of the successors and followers of Hutton and Playfair. For 

 from the seed sown on English soil by these two pioneers 

 sprang the sound healthy tree of Uniformitarianism throwing 

 out many branches brightened often by the flowers of genius 

 and eloquence, laden with the rich fruit of patient research 

 and honest criticism, sometimes warped by opposing acci- 

 dents but always deep-rooted and sound at the core. Many 

 a good workman helped to till the soil, but one name stands 

 out in bold relief over the entrance to the garden of English 

 Geology. Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was a barrister who 

 turned to geology when he found that an increasing weakness 

 of sight prevented his following other pursuits for which he 

 had been more specially trained. Lyell is the man to whom 

 English Geology owes most. For half a century he supported 

 the Uniformitarian theory, training the growing plant, 

 checking unwholesome growths. Lyell watched the progress of 

 research into the modern changes of the earth and its inhabi- 

 tants, distinguished the true from the false, and dismissed 

 the evidence for that which was not yet proven. His great 

 work entitled " The Principles of Geology " was first pub- 

 lished in 1833, and its publication marks an epoch in the 

 history of Geology. 



It is a long and winding way from the region of specu- 

 lation in which Werner and his disciples here and abroad 

 sought to find out how basalts were precipitated out of 

 an aqueous mixture, to the hardly won ground on which 

 Alfred Harker and his friends and pupils now urge with 

 persuasive accumulation of experiment and observation how 

 each ingredient was segregated according to its affinities 

 out of the eutectic magma which is now regarded as an 

 inferential fact. 



Many strong men helped on the work, some, like 

 Dr. Samuel Allport about the beginning of the 70's, quietly 

 collecting material, others, like David Forbes, testing and 

 criticising and giving out freely in discussions from the vast 

 stores of knowledge thus acquired, others teaching and writing 

 like Teall, to whom we owe the first text-book on British 

 Petrography. 



