Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

At Naples, Lyell was detained longer than he had expected, waiting for a Government steamer. "There was," he says, "no other way of going, for the pirates of Tripoli have taken so many Neapolitan vessels that no one who has not a fancy to see Africa will venture." But he arrived in Sicily before the end of November, and succeeded in reaching the summit of Etna on the first of December. He was only just in time, for the next day bad weather set in, snow fell heavily, and the summit of the mountain became practically inaccessible for the winter. But as it was, he was able to examine carefully another active volcano, the phenomena of which corresponded with those of Vesuvius, though on a grander scale. From Nicolosi, where he was delayed a day or two by the weather, Lyell went along the Catanian plain to Syracuse and southward to the extreme point of the island, Cape Passaro. From this headland he followed the coast westward as far as Girgenti, and then struck across the island in an easterly direction till he came within about a day's journey of Catania, and then he turned off in a north-westerly direction through the island to Palermo. In this zigzag journey, which occupied about five weeks, he succeeded in obtaining a good general knowledge of the geology of the eastern part of the island; he examined many sections and collected many fossils, thus obtaining material for an accurate classification of the little-known deposits of the Sicilian lowland, and in addition he lost no opportunity of studying the relations of the volcanic masses, wherever they occurred, to the sedimentary strata. As his letters show, bad roads, poor fare, and miserable accommodation made the journey anything but one of pleasure; but its results, as he wrote to Murchison, "exceeded his warmest expectations in the way of modern analogies."

By December 10th he was once more back in the Bay of Naples. As he returned through Rome he availed himself of the opportunity of examining the travertines of Tivoli, which, as he remarked, presented more analogies with those of Sicily than of Auvergne, and welcomed the news that the bones of an elephant had been found in an alluvial deposit which lay beneath the lava of an extinct Tuscan volcano. His notes also prove that he was beginning to see his way to the classification of the extensive deposits of sand and marl in Italy and Sicily, which were subsequently recognised as belonging to the Pliocene era.

Early in February Lyell reached Geneva on his homeward journey, after crossing the Mont Cenis, and by the 19th was back in Paris among his geological friends, "pumping them," as he says, and being well pumped in return. Some of them, he finds, "have come by most opposite routes to the same conclusions as myself, and we have felt mutually confirmed in our views, although the new opinions must bring about an amazing overthrow in the systems which we were carefully taught ten years ago." The accurate knowledge of Deshayes, one of the most eminent conchologists of that day, was especially helpful in bringing his field work in Italy and Sicily into clear and definite order, and he obtained from him a promise of tables of more than 2,000 species of Tertiary shells, from which (he writes to his sister Caroline, who shared his entomological tastes) "I will build up a system on data never before obtained, by comparing the contents of the present with more ancient seas, and the latter with each other."24

By the end of February he is back in London and at the Geological Society, defending his views on the constancy of Nature's operations – views which seemed rank heresy to the older school, who sought to solve every difficulty by a convulsion, and were fettered in their interpretation of the records of geology by supposed theological necessities. In April Lyell writes thus to Dr. Mantel25: —

"A splendid meeting [at the Geological Society] last night, Sedgwick in the chair. Conybeare's paper on Valley of the Thames, directed against Messrs. Lyell and Murchison's former paper, was read in part. Buckland present to defend the 'Diluvialists,' as Conybeare styles his sect; and us he terms 'Fluvialists.' Greenough assisted us by making an ultra speech on the importance of modern causes… Murchison and I fought stoutly, and Buckland was very piano. Conybeare's memoir is not strong by any means. He admits three deluges before the Noachian! and Buckland adds God knows how many catastrophes besides; so we have driven them out of the Mosaic record fairly."

Again, in the month of June, he writes to the same correspondent in regard to the second portion of the same paper26: —

"The last discharge of Conybeare's artillery, served by the great Oxford engineer against the Fluvialists, as they are pleased to term us, drew upon them on Friday a sharp volley of musketry from all sides, and such a broadside, at the finale, from Sedgwick as was enough to sink the 'Reliquiæ Diluvianæ'27 for ever, and make the second volume shy of venturing out to sea."

In a third letter, written to Dr. Fleming, he gives a similar account of the battle between the Diluvialists and Fluvialists, and concludes with these words28: —

"I am preparing a general work on the younger epochs of the earth's history, which I hope to be out with next spring. I begin with Sicily, which has almost entirely risen from the sea, to the height of nearly 4,000 feet, since all the present animals existed in the Mediterranean!"

CHAPTER IV.

THE PURPOSE DEVELOPED AND ACCOMPLISHED

The summer of 1829 was spent at Kinnordy, when the quarries of Kirriemuir and the neighbouring districts were visited from time to time, the workmen being encouraged to look out for the remains of plants and the scales of fishes. Murchison, however, was again travelling on the Continent, and, in company with Sedgwick, was exploring the geological structure of the Eastern Alps and the basin of the Danube. They appear to have kept up communication with Lyell, who hears with satisfaction of the results of their work, since these cannot fail to keep Murchison sound in the Uniformitarian faith and to complete the conversion of Sedgwick.29

"The latter" (Lyell writes to Dr. Fleming) "was astonished at finding what I had satisfied myself of everywhere, that in the more recent tertiary groups great masses of rock, like the different members of our secondaries, are to be found. They call the grand formation in which they have been working sub-Apennine. Vienna falls into it. I suspect it is a shade older, as the sub-Apennines are several shades older than the Sicilian tertiaries. They have discovered an immensely thick conglomerate, 500 feet of compact marble-like limestone, a great thickness of oolite, not distinguishable from Bath oolite, an upper red sand and conglomerate, etc. etc., all members of that group zoologically sub-Apennine. This is glorious news for me… It chimes in well with making old red transition mountain limestone and coal, and as much more as we can, one epoch, for when Nature sets about building in one place, she makes a great batch there… All the freshwater, marine, and other groups of the Paris basin are one epoch, at the farthest not more separated than the upper and lower chalk."

A letter to the same correspondent, written nearly three weeks later, at the end of October, and after his return to London, refers to the consequences of this journey.30

"Sedgwick and Murchison are just returned, the former full of magnificent views. Throws overboard all the diluvian hypothesis; is vexed he ever lost time about such a complete humbug; says he lost two years by having also started a Wernerian. He says primary rocks are not primary, but, as Hutton supposed, some igneous, some altered secondary. Mica schist in Alps lies over organic remains. No rock in the Alps older than lias.31 Much of Buckland's dashing paper on Alps wrong. A formation (marine) found at foot of Alps, between Danube and Rhine, thicker than all the English secondaries united. Munich is in it. Its age probably between chalk and our oldest tertiaries. I have this moment received a note from C. Prévost by Murchison. He has heard with delight and surprise of their Alpine novelties, and, alluding to them and other discoveries, he says: 'Comme nous allons rire de nos vieilles idées! Comme nous allons nous moquer de nous-mêmes!' At the same time he says: 'If in your book you are too hard on us on this side the Channel, we will throw at you some of old Brongniart's "metric and peponary blocks" which float in that general and universal diluvium, and have been there "depuis le grand jour qui a separé, d'une manière si tranchée, les temps ante-des-temps Post-Diluviens."'"

A short time afterwards, in a letter addressed to Mr. Leonard Horner, Lyell declines to become a candidate for the Professorship of Geology and Mineralogy at the London University,32 which was first opened in the autumn of the previous year. Evidently he considers himself to be too fully occupied, for he writes to Dr. Mantell on December 5th that his book has taken a definite shape.33 "I am bound hand and foot. In the press on Monday next with my work, which Murray is going to publish – 2 vols. – the title, 'Principles of Geology: being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation.' The first volume will be quite finished by the end of the month. The second is, in a manner, written, but will require great recasting. I start for Iceland by the end of April, so time is precious." The process of incubation was continued throughout the winter. On February 3rd, 1830, he had corrected the press as far as the eightieth page, getting on slowly, but with satisfaction to himself. "How much more difficult it is," he remarks, "to write for general readers than for the scientific world; yet half our savants think that to write popularly would be a condescension to which they might bend if they would." He fully expects that the publication of his book will bring a hornet's nest about his head, but he has determined that, when the first volume is attacked, he will waste no money on pamphleteering, but will work on steadily at the second volume, and then, if the book is a success, at the second edition, for "controversy is interminable work." He felt now that the facts of nature were on his side, and his conclusions right in the main; so, like most strong men, he adopted the same course as did the founder of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and wrote over the door of his study, "Lat them say."

The plan of a summer tour in Iceland fell through; so did another for a long journey from St. Petersburg by Moscow to the Sea of Azof, to be followed by an examination of the Crimea and the Great Steppe, and a return up the Danube to Vienna; but by the middle of June the first volume of the "Principles" was nearly finished; and in a letter to Scrope,34 to whom advance sheets of the book had been forwarded, in order that he might review it in the Quarterly, Lyell explains concisely the position which he has taken in regard to cosmology and the earth's history.

"Probably there was a beginning – it is a metaphysical question, worthy a theologian – probably there will be an end. Species, as you say, have begun and ended – but the analogy is faint and distant. Perhaps it is an analogy, but all I say is, there are, as Hutton said, 'no signs of a beginning, no prospect of an end.' Herschel thought the nebulæ became worlds. Davy said in his last book, 'It is always more probable that the new stars become visible, and then invisible, and pre-existed, than that they are created and extinguished.' So I think. All I ask is, that at any given period of the past, don't stop inquiry when puzzled by refuge to a beginning, which is all one with 'another state of nature,' as it appears to me. But there is no harm in your attacking me, provided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the probability of a beginning. Mark, too, my argument, that we are called upon to say in each case, 'Which is now most probable, my ignorance of all possible effects of existing causes,' or that 'the beginning' is the cause of this puzzling phenomenon?"

In other parts of the letter he refers to his theory of the dependence of the climate of a region upon the geography, not only upon its latitude, but also upon the distribution of land and sea, and that of the coincidence of time between zoological and geographical changes in the past, as the most novel parts of the book; stating also that he has been careful to refer to all authors from whom he has borrowed, and that to Scrope himself he is under more obligation, so far as he knows, than to any other geologist. The concluding words also are interesting: —

"I conceived the idea five or six years ago, that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must abstract mine in order to have as little to say as possible yourself. Let them feel it, and point the moral."

The last-named difficulty, to which Lyell refers in another part of this letter, was undoubtedly one of the most formidable "rocks ahead" in the path of his new book. Up to that time the progress of geology had been most seriously impeded by the supposed necessity of making its results harmonise with the Mosaic cosmogony. It was assumed as an axiom that the opening chapters of Genesis were to be understood in the strict literal sense of the words, and that to admit the possibility of misconceptions or mistakes in matters wholly beyond the cognisance of the writers, was a denial of the inspiration of Scripture, and was rank blasphemy. A large number of persons – among whom are the great mass of amateur theologians, together with some experts – are always very prone to assume the meaning of certain fundamental terms to be exactly that which they desire, and then to proceed deductively to a conclusion as if their questionable postulates were axiomatic truths. They further assume, very commonly, that the possession of theological knowledge – scanty and superficial though it may be – enables them to dispense with any study of science, and to pronounce authoritatively on the value of evidence which they are incapable of weighing, and of conclusions which they are too ignorant to test. Being thus, in their own opinion, infallible, a freedom of expression is, for them, more than permissible, which, in most other matters, would be generally held to transgress the limits of courtesy and to trespass on those of vituperation. Lyell had perceived that little real progress could be made till geologists were free to look facts in the face and to follow their guidance to whatever conclusions these might lead, irrespective of supposed consequences; or that, in other words, questions of science must be settled by inductive reasoning from accurate observations, and not by an appeal to the opinions of the men of olden time, however great might be the sanctity of their characters or the honour due to their memories. Wisely, however, he determined to prefer an indirect to a direct method of attack, and to avoid, so far as was possible, giving needlessly any cause of offence by abruptness of statement or by intemperance of language.

In deluges, the favourite resort of every "catastrophic" geologist, Lyell had long lost faith, and he laughs in one of his letters at the idea of a French geologist, that a sudden upheaval of South America may have been the cause of the Noachian flood. To the breaks in the succession of strata, a fact upon which the catastrophists much relied, he attached comparatively little value, insisting on their more or less local character. In the records of the rocks he finds no trace of a clean sweep of living creatures or of anything like a general clearance of the earth's surface, and no corroboration of the Mosaic cosmogony. He is bent on interpreting the work of Nature in the past by the work of Nature in the present, and not by the writings of the Fathers, or even by the words of Scripture itself.

Some time in the month of June the last sheet of the "Principles" must have been sent to press; for on the 25th of that month Lyell writes from Havre on his way to Bordeaux, through part of Normandy, Brittany, and La Vendée. This journey took him, as he says, "through some of the finest countries and most detestable roads he ever saw." On this occasion he was accompanied by a Captain Cooke, a commander in the Royal Navy; a man well informed, acquainted with Spain (the end of their journey), a botanist, and not wholly ignorant of geology – in short, an excellent companion, whose only fault was being "a little too fond of lagging a day for rest," even in places where nothing is to be done. Writing from Bordeaux to a sister, Lyell expresses a hope that at Bagnères de Luchon he may hear whether his book is out.35 Two passages in his letter are not without a more general interest. One repeats a remark made to him by D'Aubuisson, whom he describes as "a great gun of the old Wernerian school, who … thinks the interest of the subject greatly destroyed by our new innovation, especially our having almost cut mineralogy and turned it into a zoological science."36 D'Aubuisson also said, "We Catholic geologists flatter ourselves that we have kept clear of the mixing of things sacred and profane, but the three great Protestants, De Luc, Cuvier, and Buckland, have not done so; have they done good to science or to religion? No, but some say they have to themselves by it." The other remark is interesting in its reference to French politics, seeing that it is dated on the 9th of July, 1830. It runs thus37: —

"The quiet and perfect order and calmness that reigned at Bourbon, Vendée, and Bordeaux and Toulouse during the heat of the elections, afford a noble example to us – never were people in a greater state of excitement on political grounds than the French at this moment, yet never in our country towns were Assizes conducted with more seriousness and quiet. There is no occasion to make the rabble drunk. All the voters of the little colleges are of the rank of shopkeepers at least, those of the highest are gentlemen – only 20,000 of them out of the 30 millions of French. They are too many for such jobbing as in a Scotch county, and too independent and rich to have the feelings of a mob."

Yet at the end of this month came the "three days of July"; "perfect order and calmness" were at an end; Charles X. abdicated the throne, and the Bourbons again became exiles from France.

From Toulouse Lyell and his companion journeyed by the banks of the Ariège to the picturesque old town of Foix, and from this place to Ax, a watering-place on one of the tributaries to that river, in the heart of the Pyrenees. His keen eye notes at once the difference between the scenery of this chain and that of the Alps. Apart from the different character of the vegetation – the more luxuriant flora, the extensive forests of beech and oak at elevations where in Switzerland only the pines and larches would flourish – the valleys are narrower, the mountains more precipitous – the scenery, in short, is more like that around Interlaken or in the valley of Lauterbrunnen, without the lakes of the one or the grand background of snowy peaks in the other. In the Pyrenees the inferior height and the more southern position of the chain diminishes the snowfields and curtails the glaciers, so that the torrents run with purer waters, like they do in the Alps about the birthplace of the Po.

In order to acquire a clear idea of the structure of the Pyrenees the travellers crossed from Ax to the southern side of the watershed, though they still remained on French territory; for here, in the neighbourhood of Andorre, the frontier cuts off the heads of one or two valleys which geographically form part of Spain. Into this country they had purposed to descend, but the obstacles interposed by the reactionary jealousy of local Dogberries and the possible risks from political complications were so great, that they judged it wiser to abandon the attempt. So the travellers separated for a time, Captain Cooke, who feared the heat of the lower country, going eastwards through the curious little mountain republic of Andorre to Luchon; while Lyell, who seems to have been proof against the sun, recrossed the watershed into the valley of the Tet and descended it to Perpignan. Information obtained in this town encouraged him to go direct to Barcelona, where the Captain-General, the Conde D'Espagne, a distinguished soldier and diplomatist, gave him a courteous reception, and did everything in his power to smooth the way for a visit to Olot, a region of extinct volcanoes, which had been one of the chief ends of Lyell's journey. The expedition was successful; he did not fall among thieves, and was only annoyed by the tedious formalities and petty impertinences of the local functionaries of northern Spain; and he returned to France by a pass on the eastern side of the Canigou. He was not a little astonished, as might be expected from the remarks already quoted, when he found on arriving in that country that the reign of the Bourbons and the priests was over, the tricolor flag was hoisted on all the churches, and the royalist officials had been replaced by the nominees of the National Government.

The visit to Olot amply repaid him for the toil and trouble of the journey. An account of the district was inserted in the concluding volume of the "Principles," which was afterwards incorporated into the "Elements of Geology." The following summary is quoted from a letter to Scrope, who had suggested the visit, which was written from Luchon, where he arrived a few days after his return into France38: —

"Like those of the Vivarais [the volcanoes of Catalonia] are all, both cones and craters, subsequent to the existence of the actual hills and dales, or, in other words, no alteration of previously existing levels accompanied or has followed the introduction of the volcanic matter, except such as the matter erupted necessarily occasioned. The cones, at least fourteen of them mostly with craters, stand like Monpezat, and as perfect; the currents flow down where the rivers would be if not displaced. But here, as in the Vivarais, deep sections have been cut through the lava by streams much smaller in general, and at certain points the lava is fairly cut through, and even in two or three cases the subjacent rock. Thus at Castel Follet, a great current near its termination is cut through, and eighty or ninety feet of columnar basalt laid open, resting on an old alluvium, not containing volcanic pebbles; and below that, nummulitic limestone is eroded to the depth of twenty-five feet, the river now being about thirty-five feet lower than when the lava flowed, though most of the old valley is still occupied by the lava current. There are about fourteen or perhaps twenty points of eruption without craters. In all cases they burst through secondary limestone and sandstone, no altered rocks thrown up, as far as I could learn, not a dike exposed. A linear direction in the cones and points of eruption from north to south. Until some remains of quadrupeds are found, or other organic medals found, no guess can be made as to their geological date, unless anyone will undertake to say when the valleys of that district were excavated. As to historical dates, that is all a fudge … I can assure you that there never was an eruption within memory of man."

At Luchon Lyell rejoined Captain Cooke, and they visited one or two interesting spots in the more western part of the Pyrenees, such as the Cirque de Gavarnie and the Brèche de Roland. The former would afford object-lessons on the erosive action of cascades; the latter would set him speculating on the causes which could have fashioned that strange portal in the limestone crest of the mountain. They descended some distance on the Spanish side of the Brèche, in order to make a more complete investigation of the structure of the chain, sleeping at a shepherd's hut and returning across the snowfields next day. It is evident that whenever there was a hope of securing any geological information or of seeing some remarkable aspect of nature, Lyell was almost insensible either to heat or to fatigue.

Towards the middle of September he had reached Bayonne, from which place another very interesting letter is despatched to Scrope.39 In this he gives suggestions for making a number of experiments in order to produce by artificial means such rock-structures as lamination, ripple-mark, and current-bedding, and describes briefly a series of observations bearing on these questions, which had been carried out both during his late journey and on other occasions. "I have," he says, "for a long time been making minute drawings of the lamination and stratification of beds, in formations of very different ages, first with a view to prove to demonstration that at every epoch the same identical causes were in operation. I was next led in Scotland to a suspicion, since confirmed, that all the minute regularities and irregularities of stratification and lamination were preserved in primary clay-slate, mica-slate, gneiss, etc., showing that they had been subjected to the same general and even accidental circumstances attending the sedimentary accumulation of secondary and fossil-bearing formations.40 Lastly, I came to find out that all these various characters were identical with those presented by the bars, deltas, etc., of existing rivers, estuaries, etc."