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[ Dec. 22, 1881 
CHARLES LYELL" 
Life, Letters, and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., 
Author of the Principles of Geology, &c. Edited by 
his Sister-in-law, Mrs. Lyell In two volumes. With 
Portraits. (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 
1881.) 
Il. 
| our previous notice of this work we have dwelt at 
some length upon the insight which it affords us con- 
cerning the origin and history of the book, which consti- 
tutes Lyell’s chief title to fame. But the fact must not 
be lost sight of that, besides writing the ‘‘ Principles of 
Geology,’ Lyell gave to the. world a number of other 
books and original memoirs of the highest scientific 
value, though their fame has been overshadowed, to some 
extent, by that of his great work. The “ Principles of 
Geology’’ was not, as some would have us suppose, a 
mere compilation from the works of other authors, for in 
every page of it we find embodied the results arrived at 
_ by the author after careful personal observation and close 
reasoning. Lyell,in a letter addressed to Edward Forbes, 
in 1846, very properly protests against the idea that ori- 
ginal observations and theories are only to be published 
in journals of science and the proceedings of learned 
societies. He says :— 
“On the Continent I gain no priority for any original 
views or facts which have only appeared in my ‘ Prin- 
ciples’ and ‘Elements.’ When the Geological Society 
of France voted a sum of money to Archaic to draw up a 
report on the progress of geology for ten years (1835 to 
1845, I believe), he wrote to me to say that all treatises 
on geology were left out of such reports, as they were pre- 
sumed to be compilations, authors taking care to take 
date for their discoveries in scientific journals, but as my 
book was an exception to such rules, he wished me to 
send him an exact list of all my original theories and 
facts, and their dates, which, owing to their numerous 
editions, no one could make out, and which he must 
neglect without such aid’’ (vol. ii. p. 107). 
Among the new observations and generalisations to 
which Lyell may justly lay claim, we will here allude to 
one only. Before the appearance of the “ Principles of 
Geology” no serious attempt had been made to bring 
into correlation those important deposits which overlie 
the chalk, which the labours of the Italian and French 
naturalists had invested with so much interest. William 
Smith's classification of strata, which had met with very 
general acceptance, both in England and on the Continent, 
dealt with the formation from the Carboniferous to the 
Cretaceous inclusive. But above and below those limits 
the greatest confusion and doubt existed in connection 
with all questions of geological classification. 
What Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lonsdale did for 
the pre-Carboniferous rocks, Lyell accomplished single- 
handed for the post-Cretaceous; and his classification, 
though the advance of knowledge has necessitated modi- 
fications in it, is at the present day universally accepted 
so far as its main features are concerned. The amount 
of work undertaken by Lyell in collecting the facts upon 
which this Tertiary Classification is based was enormous, 
and is well set forth in the volumes before us (vol. i. pp. 
182-319). : 
Besides the ‘‘ Principles of Geology” and the expan- 
1, Continued from p. 148. 
sions of the last part of that work, published under the 
successive titles of “The Elements of Geology,” ‘A 
Manual of Geology,” and “ The Student’s Elements of 
Geology,” Lyell wrote four volumes of “ Travels in North 
America,” teeming with original facts and observations, 
and his “ Antiquity of Man,” or as the Saturday Review 
called it, “ Lyeli’s Trilogy on the Antiquity of Man, Ice, 
and Darwin.” And in addition to these separate works 
nearly seventy original memoirs contributed to scientific 
journals are recorded in the list at the end of the work 
lying before us, besides reviews, lectures, and addresses. 
In obtaining the materials for these multitudinous publi- 
cations Lyell was a most indefatigable worker. Every year 
he spent a number of months in travelling over parts of 
Europe or his ovn country, examining for himself the 
districts of which he had to treat in his works. It was 
very characteristic of Lyell that, though willing to learn 
from the youngest of his contemporaries, he never took 
anything on trust where personal examination was pos- 
sible ; and it was rarely indeed that his acute powers of 
observation and logical mind failed to extend, improve 
and correct the results attained by previous workers in 
the same field. He visited North America four times, 
spending thirteen months on his first tour, and nine 
months on his second, and subsequently resided for some 
months at Madeira. 
But it is not only on account of the record which they 
contain of Lyell’s own work, that the volumes before us 
are of such great value. Lyell was an active participator 
in all the scientific movements of his day, and his account 
or the meetings of the Geological Society, with its stormy 
debates, of the Geological Club and its convivial gather- 
ings, of the Royal Society and the British Association, 
are full of the most lively and interesting details. Con- 
cerning a debate at the Geological Society in 1829 he 
writes to Mantell ;— 
“The last discharge of Conybeare’s artillery, served 
by the great Oxford engineer against the Fluvialists, as 
they are pleased to term us, drew upon them on Friday a 
sharp volley of musketry from all sides, and such a broad- 
side at the /izale from Sedgwick, as was enough to sink 
the ‘ Reliquize Diluvianze’ for ever, and make the second 
volume shy of venturing out to sea. After the memoir on 
the importance of all rivers which feed the ‘ main river of 
an isle,’ and the sluggishness of Father Thames himself 
‘scarce able to move a pin’s head,’ a notice of Cully, land- 
surveyor, was read on the prodigious force of a Cheviot 
stream, ‘the College,’ which has swept away a bridge and 
annually buries large tracts under gravel. Buckland then 
jumped up, like a counsel, said Fitton to me, who had 
come down special.” 
“ After his reiteration of Conybeare’s arguments, Fitton 
made a somewhat laboured speech. I followed, and then 
Sedgwick, who decided on four or ove deluges, and said 
the simultaneousness was disproved for ever, &c., and 
declared that on the nature of such floods we should at 
present ‘doubt and not dogmatise.’ A good meeting”’ 
(vol. i. p. 253). 
Here is his account of the anniversary meeting of the 
Geological Society in the same year :— 
“‘Sedgwick quite astonished them, it seems, in the 
chair at the general meeting, which was very full. Among 
innumerable good hits, when propusing the toast of the 
Astronomical Society, and Herschel, their president, he 
said, alluding to H.’s intended marriage (for he is just 
about to marry the daughter of a Scotch clergyman), 
