366 Revieics — Life of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. 



says, " My taking the office a tliird time is out of the question. I 

 have done a fair share of that duty, and hope to continue for years 

 travelling, making original observations, and above all going to 

 school to the younger, but not, for all that, young geologists v^^hom 

 I meet everywhere, so far a-head of us old stagers, that they are 

 familiar v^ith branches of the science fast rising into importance 

 vi^hich were not thought of when I began. Such is the case with 

 young Gaudin here, a fossil botanist, who in age might almost be 

 my grandson." 



The letter on p. 281, vol. ii. is misplaced. Its real date is 1838, 

 not 1858, for it refers to Darwin's paper on the connection of certain 

 volcanic phenomena, and on the formation of mountain-chains and 

 volcanos, read before the Geological Society in March, 1838. In 

 this letter Lyell says, "I was much struck with the different tone 

 in which my gradual causes were treated by all, even including 

 De la Beche, from that which they experienced in the same room 

 four years ago, when Buckland, De la Beche, Sedgwick, Whewell, 

 and some others treated them with as much ridicule as was con- 

 sistent with politeness in my presence." 



The index to the volumes is meagre : there are no references to 

 the Geological Society or Geological Club, frequently mentioned in 

 the Letters, and insufficient references to the individuals whose 

 names are noticed. It is also to be regretted that the list of papers 

 and works by Lyell, forming Appendix E, has not been carefully 

 prepared. The titles are sometimes inexact and the references 

 seldom complete. The important paper by Lyell in 1840, On the 

 Boulder Formation, etc., of Eastern Norfolk, is referred to the 

 "Geological Magazine"! instead of the "Philosophical Magazine." 



The variety of scientific subjects touched upon in Lyell's Letters 

 illustrates in one sense the great scope of Geology. And his wide 

 grasp of the subject, aided so much by extensive travel in America 

 as well as in Europe, enabled him to appreciate the results of the 

 labours of so many different workers on the Natural History and 

 Physical Geography of the Earth, not merely of past times, but of 

 the present day. 



The task of keeping pace with geological progress was in Lyell's 

 early days comparatively easy, but as the literature of the subject 

 gradually increased it naturally outgrew his ability to keep up with 

 it. Every j'^ear, indeed, added to this difficulty, so that in his later 

 years he leant largely on the support of others, who furnished him 

 with the general results of scientific work in difierent departments — 

 work which he could appreciate and utilize in the grand fabric he 

 had done so much to construct, and in which his interest never 

 flagged. 



Shortly after his death, a brief notice of Sir Charles Lyell appeared 

 in the Geological Magazine for March, 1875 (pp. 142-144), from 

 which we quote the following passage : — " He had lived to see the 

 extension of science, which he had so eagerly desired, realized. In 

 future times, wherever the name of Lyell would be known, it would 

 be as that of the greatest, the most philosophical, the most enlight- 

 ened geologist of Great Britain or Europe." 



