144 Obituary — Sir Charles Lyell. 



explored many parts of Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, 

 and Spain, including the volcanic regions of Catalonia. In 1836 he visited 

 the Danish Islands of Seeland and Monen, to examine their Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary strata. In 1841 he was induced to cross the Atlantic, partly in 

 order to deliver a course of lectures on his favourite science at Boston, and 

 partly in order to make observations on the structure and formation of 

 the Transatlantic Continent. He remained in the United States for a year, 

 travelling over the Northern and Central States, and extending his journey 

 as far southward as Carolina, and northward to Canada and Nova Scotia, his 

 exploration ranging from the basin of the St. Lawrence to the mouths of the 

 Mississippi. On returning from this journey, he published his " Travels in 

 North America," a work of considerable interest to other persons besides 

 geologists, and showing that he could extend his observations to the strati- 

 fication of society around him as well as that of the earth beneath his feet. 

 He paid a second visit to America in 1845, when he closely examined the 

 geological formation of the Southern States and the coasts that border on 

 the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and more especially the great sunken 

 area of New Madrid, which had been devastated by an earthquake 30 or 40 

 years previously. Upon reaching England, he published his " Second Visit 

 to the United States," a companion to his former work. For his other 

 scientific papers we must refer our readers to the " Proceedings " of the 

 Geological Society, 1846-49, and its " Transactions." 



Late in life, about 10 or 12 years ago, Sir Charles Lyell published another 

 very important work on "The Antiquity of Man," summarizing and dis- 

 cussing all the important facts accumulated up to that time in favour of the 

 high antiquity of the human race, viewed from the standpoints of the 

 archaeologist, the geologist, and the philologist. 



Numerous honours were conferred on Lyell in recognition of his services to 

 Science. As far back as 1836 he was elected to the Presidential Chair of the 

 Geological Society, to which he was re-elected in 1850. He received from 

 Her Majesty the honour of knighthood in 1848, and in 1855 the honorary 

 degree of D.C.L. of the University of Oxford was conferred upon him. He 

 had been for many years a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and in 1833 re- 

 ceived one of the Eoyal Society's Gold Medals for his " Principles of Geology." 

 In 1858 the Eoyal Society conferred upon him the highest honour at their 

 disposal— the Copley Medal; and in 1864-5 he filled the Presidential Chair 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 

 Wollaston Gold Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1865 (his 

 continued official connexion with which had precluded his receiving it earlier). 

 He was raised in 1864, on the recommendation of the then Prime Minister, 

 Lord Palmerston, to a Baronetcy, which now becomes extinct by his decease. 

 He was a Deputy-Lieutenant for his native county of Forfarshire. 



Sir Charles Lyell has been so long and so honourably known among the 

 scientific teachers of the time, that though he had arrived at his seventy- 

 eighth year, and the period of his chief intellectual and physical activity had 

 long passed away, probably even the younger men of the present generation 

 will feel that science is poorer by his loss. 



At the meeting of the Geological Society of London, held in the Society's 

 room, Burlington House, Piccadilly, on Wednesday last (February 24th), the 

 President, John Evans, Esq., F.E.S., before commencing the business of the 

 meeting, alluded to the great loss which all present had sustained. He little 

 expected, when speaking on the last occasion, at the Anniversary Meeting, of 

 the services which Sir Charles Lyell had rendered to science for the previous 

 fifty years, that he should have on the present occasion to announce and 

 lament his irreparable loss. Sir Charles Lyell had been a true philosopher 

 and a sincere friend. He had lived to see the extension of science which he 

 had so eagerly desired realized. In future times, wherever the name of Lyell 

 woidd be known, it would be as that of the greatest, the most philosophical, 

 the most enlightened geologist of Great Britain or Europe. 



In accordance with the wish of the Council of the Eoyal Society, Sir 

 Charles Lyell will rest beside his old friend and fellow-labourer in science, 

 Sir John Herschel, in Westminster Abbey. 



