Charles Lyell and Modern Geology. Bonney Thomas George
they journeyed over the pleasant uplands to Vevay, and so by the shore of the Lake of Geneva and the plain of the Rhone valley to Martigny, turning aside to visit the salt mines near Bex. They reached Martigny a little more than seven weeks after the lake, formed in the valley of the Dranse by the forward movement of the Giétroz Glacier, had burst its icy barrier, and they saw everywhere the ruins left by the rush of the flood. The road as they approached Martigny was even then, in some places, under water; in others it was completely buried beneath sand. The lower storey of the hotel had been filled with mud and débris, which was still piled up to the courtyard. Lyell went up the valley of the Dranse to the scene of the catastrophe, and wrote in his journal an interesting description of both the effects of the flood and the remnants of the ice-barrier. Before returning to Martigny he also walked up to the Hospice on the Great St. Bernard, and then the whole party crossed by the Simplon Pass into Italy, following the accustomed route and visiting the usual sights till they arrived at Milan.
The next stage on their tour – and this must have been in those days a little tedious – brought them to Venice. The Campanile Lyell does not greatly admire, and of St. Mark's he says rather oddly, "The form is very cheerful and gay"; but on the whole he is much impressed with the buildings of Venice, and especially with the pictures. On their return they went to Bologna, and then crossed the Apennines to Florence. Everywhere little touches in the diary indicate a mind exceptionally observant – such as notes on the first firefly, the fields of millet, the festooned vines seen on the plain, or the peculiar sandy zone on the northern slopes of the hills. He also mentions that shortly after crossing the frontier of Tuscany they passed near Coviliajo, "a volcanic fire" which proceeded from a neighbouring mountain.8 This they intended to visit on their return. But at Florence the diary ends abruptly, for the note-book which contained the rest of it was unfortunately lost.
We have given this summary of Lyell's journal in some detail, but even thus it barely suffices to convey an adequate idea of the cultured tastes, wide interests, and habits of close and accurate observation disclosed by its pages. It shows, better perhaps than any other documents, the mental development of the future author of the "Principles of Geology." Few things, as he journeys, escape his notice; he describes facts carefully and speculates but little. As he wanders among the Alpine peaks, he makes no reference to convulsions of the earth's crust; as he views the ruin wrought by the Dranse, he says naught of deluges.
The travellers got back to England in September, and at the end of the Long Vacation Lyell returned to Oxford. There he remained till December, 1819, when he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, obtaining a second class in Classical Honours. Considering that he had never been a "hard reader," and that he appears to have spent much of his "longs" in travel – a practice which, though good for general education, counts for little in the schools – the position indicates that he possessed rather exceptional abilities and a good amount of scholarship. Though Oxford had been unable to bestow upon him a systematic training in science, she had given a definite bias to his inclination, and had fostered and cultivated a taste for literature which in the future brought forth a rich fruitage.
CHAPTER III.
THE GROWTH OF A PURPOSE
Shortly after he had donned the bachelor's hood Lyell came to London, was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and studied law in the office of a special pleader. Science was not forsaken, for in March, 1819, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, and about the same time joined the Linnean Society. Before very long his legal studies were interrupted. His eyes became so weak that a complete rest was prescribed; accordingly, in the autumn of 1820, he accompanied his father on a journey to Rome. During this but little was done in geology, for the travellers spent almost all their time in towns.
On his return, so far as can be inferred from the few letters which have been published, Lyell continued to work at geology, and at Christmas, 1821, was seeking in vain for freshwater fossils in the neighbourhood of Bartley. In the spring of 1822 he investigated the Sussex coast from Hastings to Dungeness, and studied the effects of the sea at Winchelsea and Rye. In the early summer of 1823 he visited the Isle of Wight, and in a letter to Dr. Mantell suggested that the "blue marl"9 in Compton Chine is identical with that at Folkestone, and compared the underlying strata with those in Sussex, clearing up some confusions, into which earlier observers had fallen, about the Wealden and Lower Greensand. He was now evidently beginning to get a firm grip on the subject – a thing far from easy in days when so little had been ascertained – and this year he read his first papers to the Geological Society – one, in January, written in conjunction with Dr. Mantell, "On the Limestone and Clay of the Ironsand in Sussex"; the other in June, "On the Sections presented by Some Forfarshire Rivers." Also, on February 7th, he was elected one of the secretaries of that Society, an office which he retained till 1826. This is a pretty clear proof that he had begun to make his mark among geologists, and was well esteemed by the leaders of the science.
No sooner had he returned from the Isle of Wight than he started for Paris, going direct from London to Calais, in the Earl of Liverpool steam packet, "in 11 hours! 120 miles! engines 80 horse-power for 240 tons." In the last letter written to his father before quitting England he refers to our neighbours across the Channel in the following terms: "My opinion of the French people is that they are much too corrupt for a free government and much too enlightened for a despotic one." That was written full seventy years ago; perhaps even now, were he alive, he would not be disposed to withdraw the words.
At Paris he was well received by Cuvier, Humboldt, and other men of science, attended lectures at the Jardin du Roi, and saw a good deal of society. His letters home often contain interesting references to matters political and social – such as, for example, the following remarks which he heard from the mouth of Humboldt: "You cannot conceive how striking and ludicrous a feature it is in Parisian society at present that every other man one meets is either minister or ex-minister. So frequent have been the changes. The instant a new ministry is formed, a body of sappers and miners is organised. They work industriously night and day. At last the ministers find that they are supplanted by the very arts by which a few months ago they raised themselves to power."10 Lyell more than once expresses a regret, which, indeed, was generally felt in scientific circles, that Cuvier had lost caste by "dabbling so much with the dirty pool of politics"; and himself works away at geology, studying the fossils of the Paris basin in the museums, and visiting the most noted sections in order to add to his own collection and observe the relations of the strata.
He returned to England towards the end of September, and no doubt spent the next few months in working at geology as far as his eyes, which were becoming stronger, permitted. The summer of 1824 was devoted to geological expeditions. In the earlier part he took Mons. Constant Prévost, one of the leaders of geology in France, to the west of England. Their special purpose was to examine the Jurassic rocks, but they extended their tour as far as Cornwall. Afterwards Lyell went to Scotland, where he was joined by Professor Buckland; and the two friends, after spending a few days in Ross-shire, went to Brora, and then returned from Inverness by the Caledonian canal. This gave them the opportunity of examining the famous "parallel roads" of Glenroy, which were the more interesting because they had already seen something of the kind near Cowl, in Ross-shire. Afterwards they went up Glen Spean and crossed the mountains to Blair Athol, visiting the noted locality in Glen Tilt, where Hutton made his famous discovery of veins of granite intrusive in the schists of that valley, and then they made their way to Edinburgh. Here much work was done, both among collections and in the field, and it was lightened – as might be expected in a place so hospitable – by social pleasures and friendly converse with some of the leading literary and scientific men.
Four years of comparative rest and frequent change of scene had produced such an improvement in the condition of his eyes that he was able to resume his study of the law, and was called to the Bar in 1825. For two years he went on the Western Circuit, having chambers in the Temple and getting a little business. But, as his correspondence shows, geology still held the first place in his affections,11 and papers were read to the Society from time to time. Among them one of the most important, though it was not printed in their journal,
Probably it was a bituminous shale which had become ignited, as was the case at Ringstead Bay, Dorset, with the Kimeridge clay. The same often happens with the "banks" of coal-pits.
Now recognised as gault. The identification named above was soon found to be correct.
Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 127. Some sentences (for the sake of brevity) are omitted from the quotation.
He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1826.