Sir Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell , 1797-1875, British geologist. After studying and briefly practicing law, he spent most of his life in travel and in popularizing scientific ideas. He championed and won general acceptance of the theory of uniformity of causes, which was first proposed by James Hutton (as opposed to the theory of catastrophism ) in his Principles of Geology (3 vol., 1830-33), which went into 12 editions in his lifetime. Lyell furthered the idea central to uniformitarianism , that the present processes acted on the earth in the same way all the way through time and at about the same intensity. He also brought up the idea that all processes (i.e., biological and geological) were delicately balanced. In addition to Elements of Geology (1838) and The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), he wrote two books on his travels in North America. Lyell's work was influential in shaping 19th-century ideas not only in geology specifically, but in scientific fields as a whole; he facilitated later acceptance of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Among Lyell's other important contributions was the division of the Tertiary period into the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs.

Bibliography: See his Life, Letters, and Journals, ed. by his sister-in-law, K. M. Lyell (2 vol., 1881); study by L. G. Wilson (3 vol., 1972).

Lyell, Sir Charles (1797–1875) Scottish geologist. He was influential in shaping 19th-century ideas about science and wrote the popular three-volume Principles of Geology (1830–33). Other works include Elements of Geology (1838) and The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man (1863).

Lyell, Charles (1797–1875) Charles Lyell was born into a well-to-do Scots family in Forfarshire in the year of James Hutton's death, and was to become one of the foremost British geologists of all time. Between 1816 and 1819 he was at Oxford reading law. There he attended lectures in geology by Dr William Buckland, who greatly influenced the rise of geology in England and aroused Lyell's enthusiasm to the point that he practised law for only a couple of years before turning to a life in geology. Being well-heeled, Lyell was able to travel extensively in Europe as well as in Britain. He became a fellow of the Linnean and Geological Societies, corresponded with many of the foremost geologists of the day, and was elected to the Royal Society in 1826.

These were days in which the catastrophists were still ascendant, but by 1825 Lyell was convinced of the validity of a form of uniformitarianism as providing the grand explanation of the visible condition of the crust of the Earth. In 1830 he published the first volume of his great work, The principles of geology. Two more volumes were published by 1833. Lyell's visits to France and Italy led him to propose a threefold stratigraphical division of the Tertiary rocks there on the basis of the proportion of recent to extinct species of mollusc present. His terms Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene for these are still in use in modified form.

Lyell's Elements of geology (1838) was to become a standard work for stratigraphy for many years. He published a stream of contributions in several journals, and was keen to see and study as much as he could in order to explain geological phenomena. His travels in Europe and his two visits to North America helped him to visualize ancient environments in which geological formations such as coal measures were formed.

In 1831 Charles Lyell became (the first) Professor of Geology at King's College in the new University of London. He was knighted in 1848, and created a baronet in 1864. Lyell was buried in Westminster Abbey, as a national mark of regard for one who had championed geology and established it as an academic discipline in its own right.

D. L. Dineley