SIR CHARLES LYELL. 253 



difficult matter to decide what was best for a life- 

 pursuit. His father wished him to study law. In 

 reply, the son says : " As for the confidence and 

 quickness which you were speaking of, as one of 

 the chief requisites of the Bar, I don't know 

 whether intercourse with the world will supply it, 

 but God knows, I have little enough of it now in 

 company." 



During his college course, Lyell made a journey 

 with some friends to Staffa, and wrote a poem upon 

 the place, and then, with his parents and his eldest 

 sisters, travelled in France, Switzerland, and Italy. 

 Here, in the midst of art and beautiful scenery, 

 his mind still turned toward science. He thought 

 the collections in comparative anatomy in the 

 Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, would tempt any one 

 to "take up ardently the study of anatomy." 

 In Cuvier's lecture-room, filled with fossil re- 

 mains, he found " three glorious relics of a former 

 world, which have added several new genera to the 

 Mammalia." 



In the Jura chain he concluded the limestone 

 to be "of a different age from what we passed 

 through before Dijon, for the latter abounded in 

 organic remains, whereas I could not discover one 

 fossil in the Jura. By the roadside I picked up 

 many beautiful petrifactions, which must be form- 

 ing daily here, where the water is charged plenti- 

 fully with lime." 



"The rock of the Col de Balme," he said, "is a 

 brown, ligneous slate, with some veins of white 



