Principles of Geology, Vol. 3 of 4: Being an Inquiry How Far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface Are Referable to Causes Now in Operation (Classic Reprint)
Principles of Geology, Vol. 1 of 4: Being an Inquiry How Far the Former Changes on the Earth's Surface Are Referable to Causes Now in Operation (Classic Reprint)
Principles of Geology, Vol. 2 of 4: Being an Inquiry How Far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface Are Referable to Causes Now in Operation (Classic Reprint)
A Manual of Elementary Geology or, The Ancient Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants as Illustrated by Geological Monuments eBook: Charles Lyell: Kindle Store
Charles Lyell was a British geologist who popularised the revolutionary work of James Hutton.
Background
Charles Lyell was the eldest son of Charles Lyell of Kinnordy, Forfarshire, and was born on the 14th of November 1797, on the family estate in Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the eldest of 10 children. His father (1767 - 1849) was known both as a botanist and as the translator of the Vita Nuova and the Convito of Dante: the plant Lyellia was named after him.
Education
Charles Lyell's education path started at a primary school near Bartley Lodge. There is no information on how well did Charles Lyell perform at the time of his elementary school education. There is no information regarding what high school did Charles Lyell attend. Some sources state that he had attended several expensive private schools, but that he wasn't very proficient in the education process. Instead of being interested in classroom lecturing, Charles loved more to be tutored about nature by his father during their trips and vacations around the United Kingdom. Since he was the oldest of his nine brothers and sisters, Charles' father made endeavors teaching him Science. When it comes to Charles Lyell's high education, he had enrolled at the Exeter College, which is the part of the University of Oxford, in 1816. At the Exeter College, Professor William Buckland gave Charles the lectures in Classics, Math, and Geology.
From Exeter College, Charles graduated magna cum laude with as Bachelor of Arts in Classics in 1819. After that degree, he had also obtained the Master of Arts degree in 1821. Then he had gone to London to study law. The Exeter College of the Oxford University - graduated in 1819 with as B.A., and graduated in 1821 with as M.A. in Classics.
Career
Upon his graduation, Charles Lyell had gone to London to pursue a career in Law. Eventually, he became the part of the prestigious club of lawyers - the Lincoln's Inn. During his free time and while he was still a lawyer, Charles traveled the United Kingdom 's rural parts to observe natural and geological formations. His eyesight began to weaken before he became a lawyer, during his law studies. He only found sanctuary from hard law studies and career in law by spending his free time outdoors. One of Charles notable explorations was his visit to Sussex in the year of 1822. The reason for his visit to Sussex was to see the evidence of Earth's crust vertical movements. He decided to pay his visit to Sussex's Gideon Mantell to explore Earth's crust vertical movements after listening to the lectures of Robert Jameson in 1821. In the year of 1823, Charles Lyell became the part of the prestigious Geological Society of London as its joint secretary. In that same year, Charles Lyell had traveled to Paris, where he had met with the renowned naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and with Georges Cuvier. While in Paris, Lyell had examined the Paris Basin together with Louis-Constant Prévost, the geologist from France. Charles Lyell studied in the year of 1824 the sediments that were forming in the freshwater lakes near his birthplace of Kinnordy. During his stay in London, Lyell participated in the intellectual life of London being the part of several academic societies in London.
Charles quit the career in law totally in the year of 1827 and had embarked on a career in geology. This decision of his proved as a right decision - Charles' career in geology was the right call for him and made him famous worldwide. Also, Charles' career in the geology field acquired him an enormous wealth, which he already had a plenty of from his family. During the 1830s decade, Charles Lyell served the position as the Professor of Geology at the prestigious King's College London.
Between 1828 and 1829, Charles studied the region of Mt. Etna, where he found evidence to confirm his beliefs. After returning to London, he began work on his book, "Principles of Geology," the first volume of which was published in 1830.
Lyell's book made his argument for uniformitarianism, or the idea of uniform geological forces that have shaped earth throughout its history. The book was controversial as many people relied on the biblical story of the flood to explain earth's geological features.
Charles published the second and third volumes of the "Principles of Geology" between 1831 and 1833. He lived a quiet life for the next eight years, devoting his time to revising his book and gathering data for new editions. In 1838, he published "Elements of Geology," which described European fossils and rocks from the most recent to the oldest discovered.
Beginning in 1841, Charles spent a year traveling and lecturing in North America, which included a lecture at the Lowell Institute in Boston that attracted thousands. In 1858, after exhaustive study, he proved that Mt. Etna was built by repeated small volcanic eruptions instead of a single large upheaval as many geologists of the time believed. Late in his career, he published "Student's Elements of Geology," a condensed version of his three-volume work that by then had become very large.
Charles died on February 22, 1875 at the age of 77 of natural causes. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Charles grew up in a family of Roman Catholics, and he remained a religious and devoted Catholic throughout his life. Although his work was the inspiration for Charles Darwin's evolution theory and Charles being his friend, he had never supported Charles' theory because of his religious views.
Politics
Charles Lyell was never a member of any political party, nor he was ever involved in the politics. Despite that fact, he had many politician friends and he was also awarded several times by the British Monarchy.
Views
Quotations:
"Each species may have had its origin in a single pair, or individual, where an individual was sufficient, and species may have been created in succession at such times and in such places as to enable them to multiply and endure for an appointed period, and occupy an appointed space on the globe."
"Never call an accountant a credit to his profession; a good accountant is a debit to his profession."
"Geology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it enquires into the causes of these changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the surface and external structure of our planet. "
"There is no foundation in geological facts, for the popular theory of the successive development of the animal and vegetable world, from the simplest to the most perfect forms. "
"Geology differs as widely from cosmogony, as speculations concerning the creation of man differ from history. "
"So far from having a materialistic tendency, the supposed introduction into the earth at successive geological periods of life, -sensation, -instinct, -the intelligence of the higher mammalia bordering on reason, -and lastly the improvable reason of Man himself, presents us with a picture of the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter. "
"Millions of our race are now supported by lands situated where deep seas once prevailed in earlier ages. In many districts not yet occupied by man, land animals and forests now abound where the anchor once sank into the oozy bottom. "
"It is probable that a greater number of monuments of the skill and industry of man will, in the course of the ages, be collected together in the bed of the ocean than will exist at any other time on the surface of the continents. "
"Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than the assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change. "
Membership
In 1866, Charles was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Interests
He was fond of reading classic novels and travelling.
Connections
In 1832, Lyell married Mary Horner, who was also associated with the "Geological Society of London".