Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

Early in October Lyell is back again in Paris, to find Louis Philippe seated on the throne in the place of Charles X., and a war party "praying night and day for the entry of the Prussians into Belgium in the hope of the French being drawn into the affair. A finer opportunity, they say, could not have happened for resuming our natural limits on the Rhine." In the midst of political changes and warlike aspirations geology, he observes, is not making much progress in Paris. Some of the naturalists have "got their heads too full of politics"; others are forced to work as literary hacks in order to live. "Books on natural history and medicine have no sale; there is a demand only for political pamphlets." So Lyell enters into an engagement with Deshayes, who, like so many others, has to live by his pen lest he should starve by science, for "a private course of fossil conchology," and for two months' work after Lyell has returned to England, to be spent in tabulating the species of Tertiary shells in his own (Deshayes') and the other great collections of Paris. "I shall thus," Lyell says, "be giving the subject a decided push by rendering the greater wealth of the French collectors available in illustrating the greater experience of the English geologists in actual observation; for here they sit still and buy shells, and work indoors, as much as we travel." He also remarks to the same correspondent (a sister): "I am nearly sure now that my grand theory of temperature will carry the day… I will treat our geologists with a theory for the newer deposits in next volume, which, although not half so original, will perhaps surprise them more."41 He was expecting, as another letter shows, to prove the gradual approximation of the fauna preserved in the Tertiary deposits to that which still exists, and to settle, as he hopes "for ever, the question whether species come in all at a batch or are always going out and coming in." Already he is in a position to affirm that the Tertiary formations of Sicily in all probability are more recent than the "crags" of England, for, among the sixty-three species which he had collected from the beds underlying Etna, only three were not known to be still inhabitants of the Mediterranean; and besides this, between these "crags" and the London clay a series of formations can be intercalated. In the same letter (to Scrope)42 he states that Deshayes has found, at St. Mihiel on the Meuse, three old needles of limestone, like those in the Isle of Wight, round which run three distinct lines of perforations, like those on the columns of the "Temple of Serapis;" these hollows being "sometimes empty, but thousands of them filled with saxicavas." This, of course, was a proof that there had been, in comparatively recent times, important changes in the level of the land and sea.

Early in November Lyell is back in London, at his chambers in Crown Office Row, Temple, to find that Scrope's review of the first volume of the "Principles" has been much admired, that the book is selling steadily, and is likely to prove "as good as an annuity"; that it has not been seriously attacked by the "Diluvialists," while it has been highly praised by the bulk of geologists. He is about to move, he writes, into chambers in Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn, which are "very light, healthy and good, on the same staircase as Broderip." Invitations to dinner are becoming frequent, but he wisely determines to go but little into society. "All my friends," he says, "who are in practice do this all the year and every year, and I do not see why I should not be privileged, now that I have the moral certainty of earning a small but honourable independence if I labour as hard for the next ten years as during the last three. I was never in better health, rarely so good, and after so long a fallow I feel that a good crop will be yielded and that I am in good train for composition."43 The second volume, he hopes, will be out in six months; this will include the history of the globe to the beginning of the Tertiary era, when the first of existing species appeared.

The next year, 1831, was an epoch marked by more than one change. To take the smallest first, he was made a deputy-lieutenant of the county of Forfar; next, in March, he was elected Professor of Geology at King's College, London, which had been recently founded by members of the Church of England as an educational counterpoise to the University of London (University College). To Lyell himself the appointment was comparatively unimportant, but it indicated that wider views on scientific questions and a more tolerant spirit were gaining ground among the higher ranks of the clergy in the Established Church. The appointment was in the hands, exclusively, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and of Llandaff, and two "strictly orthodox doctors." Llandaff, Lyell was informed, hesitated, but Conybeare,44 though opposed to Lyell's theories, vouched for his orthodoxy. So the prelates declared that they "considered some of my doctrines startling enough, but could not find that they were come by otherwise than in a straight-forward manner, and (as I appeared to think) logically deducible from the facts; so that whether the facts were true or not, or my conclusions logical or otherwise, there was no reason to infer that I had made my theory from any hostile feeling towards revelation"45– a conclusion, marked by a wise caution, which representatives of the Church of England would have done well to bear in mind on more than one subsequent occasion – such as, for example, when the question of the antiquity of man or that of the origin of species was raised. But supporters of the Church of England may fairly maintain that in difficult crises, especially in those connected with discoveries in science or in history, the utterances of her bishops have been generally cautious and far-seeing; displays of confident ignorance and rash denunciations are more common among the "inferior clergy." As a comment on the moderation indicated by his election, Lyell says that a friend in the United States affirms that there "he could hardly dare to approve of the doctrines even in a review, such a storm would the orthodox raise against him. So much for toleration of Church Establishment and No Church Establishment countries." A third event of the year – which also happened in the earlier part of it – was destined to exercise a much more lasting influence upon his life. This was his engagement to Miss Mary Horner, eldest daughter of Mr. Leonard Horner, the younger and hardly less distinguished brother of Francis Horner, who, while almost as enthusiastic a geologist as his future son-in-law, took an active interest in educational questions, and afterwards did public service as Inspector of Factories.

By the middle of June Lyell had advanced as far as page 110 in printing the second volume of the "Principles of Geology," notwithstanding interruptions, such as a visit to Cambridge, where he took an ad eundem degree,46 and the presence of his father and brother, as well as of his friend Conybeare, in London, all of whom required to be lionised. The letter47 (to Mantell) which refers to these impediments, passes abruptly from Fitton's broken arm to the giant femur of a new reptile, and incidentally mentions the discovery of a section which has since become a centre of geological controversy. "Murchison and his wife," he writes, "are gone to make a tour in Wales, where a certain Trimmer has found near Snowdon 'crag' shells at a height of 1,000 feet, which Buckland and he convey thither by the deluge." The shells are at an altitude above sea-level considerably higher than Lyell supposed. Moel Tryfaen is a massive, rather outlying hill, about five miles west of the peak of Snowdon, and at about the same distance from the nearest part of the sea-coast. Its bare summit rises gently to a scattered group of projecting crags, the highest of which is 1,401 feet above the sea. On the eastern side are extensive slate quarries, and in working these the shell beds are disclosed a short distance below the summit. They consist of well-stratified sands, with occasional gravelly beds, and contain a fair number of shells, both broken and whole, the fauna being slightly more arctic than that which still inhabits the neighbouring sea. The deposit is now recognised as more recent than the "crags" of East Anglia, for none of the species are extinct, and is assigned to some part of the so-called Glacial Epoch. It was before long regarded as an indication that, at no very remote date after North Wales had assumed or very nearly assumed its present outlines, the whole district was depressed for at least 1,380 feet, so that the sea broke over the summit crags of Moel Tryfaen. For many years this interpretation passed unquestioned; but a modern school of geologists has found it to be such an inconvenient obstacle to certain hypotheses about the former extent of land-ice, that they maintain these shells were collected from the bed of the Irish Sea (then supposed to be above water) by an ice-sheet as it was on its way from the north to invade the Principality, and were conveyed by it, with all care, up the slopes of Moel Tryfaen, till they were finally deposited on its summit, in beds which somehow or other were stratified. One may venture to doubt whether the hypothesis of a rampant and conchologically-disposed ice-sheet would have found much more favour with the cautiously inductive mind of Lyell than that of a deluge.

Shortly after this letter, Lyell, though all the manuscript of his second volume had not yet been sent to the printers, and proof-sheets followed him, refreshed himself with a tour of four or five weeks in the volcanic district of the Eifel. Here the cones, all comparatively low, are scattered sporadically over a rolling upland which occupies the angle between the Rhine and the Moselle. The valleys for the most part are carved out of slaty rocks much of the same age as those of Devonshire; and the craters, "strange holes, each eruption having been almost invariably at some new point," are now very commonly occupied by quiet pools of water, such as Lyell had already seen in the old volcanic districts of the Papal States. Among these craters, composed sometimes of loose and light scoria, from which no lava-stream ever flowed, he found fresh evidence – as at the Rotherberg – against the diluvian hypothesis. "It is," as he writes to his friend, Dr. Fleming, "one of the ten thousand proofs of the incubus that the Mosaic deluge has been, and is, I fear, long destined to be, on our science. Now, I am fully determined to open my strongest fire against the new diluvial theory of swamping our continents by waves raised by paroxysmal earthquakes. I can prove by reference to cones (hundreds of uninjured cones) of loose volcanic scoriæ and ashes, of various and some of great antiquity (as proved by associated organic remains), that no such general waves have swept over Europe during the Tertiary era – cones at almost every height, from near the sea, to thousands of feet above it."48

But early in August he was back in London, hard at work in writing and correcting proofs. This business detained him longer than he anticipated, but his labours were cheered by the news of the eruption of Graham's Island. Here was another case in support of the thesis which he was ready to maintain against all comers. But a few months since there had been a depth of eighty fathoms, as was proved by sounding, on the site of this island. Now the cone "is 200 feet above water and is still growing.49 Here is a hill 680 feet, with hope of more, and the probability of much having been done before the 'Britannia' sounded." Surely Nature herself was testifying "her approbation of the advocates of modern causes! Was the cross which Constantine saw in the heavens a more clear indication of the approaching conversion of a wavering world?"

But in the beginning of September Lyell broke away from the emissaries of the press and took passage by sea to Edinburgh, there to combine business with a fair amount of both scientific work and social pleasure. This visit afforded him an opportunity of hearing Chalmers preach. In a letter to Miss Horner he gives a brief abstract, and expresses his general opinion of the sermon50: —

"It was a very long discourse, but admirable. The subject was 'repentance,' a hackneyed one enough… He explained the effect of habit, and its increasing power over the mind, as a law of our nature, with as much clearness and as philosophically as he could have done had he been explaining the doctrine to a class of university students in a lecture on the philosophy of the human mind. But then the practical application was enforced by a strain of real eloquence, of a very energetic, natural, and striking description… But, unfortunately, every here and there he seemed to feel that he was sinning against some of the Calvinistic doctrines of his school, and all at once there was some dexterous pleading about 'original sin,' which interfered a little with the free current of the discourse… Upon the whole, however, judging from this single specimen, I think I would sooner hear him again than any preacher I ever heard, Reginald Heber not excepted."

At this time Lyell was keeping a journal, which was forwarded to Miss Horner, then in Germany, to serve apparently as a substitute for ordinary letters; home news, disturbances arising from the struggle over the Reform Bill, visits of friends, geological researches, walks on the hills to search for plants or for insects, the habits of the Kinnordy bees, or the accomplishments of two parrots, brought from Africa by his naval brother – all being jotted down just as they occurred.

Among this farrago– though not of nonsense – geological topics, since Miss Horner had similar tastes, occupy a considerable space. She, however, evidently was, comparatively speaking, a beginner, and in one or two characteristic sentences her lover and preceptor passes from information to counsel: "If you are not frightened by De la Beche, I think you are in a fair way to be a geologist; though it is in the field only that a person can really get to like the stiff part of it. Not that there is really anything in it that is not very easy, when put into plainer language than scientific writers choose often unnecessarily to employ." He also records51 a piece of advice from his old friend, Dr. Fleming, which is enough to make a modern professor of geology sigh for "the good old times." He said to Lyell:

"If you lecture once a year for a short course, I am sure you will derive advantage from it. A short practice of lecturing is a rehearsal of what you may afterwards publish, and teaches you by the contact with pupils how to instruct, and in what you are obscure. A little of this will improve your power, perhaps as an author. Then, as you are pursuing a path of original and purely independent discovery and observation, it increases much your public usefulness in a science so unavoidably controversial to have thrown over you the moral protection of being in a public and responsible situation, connected with a body like King's College. But then you must stipulate that you are to be free to travel, and must only be bound to give one short course annually."

Truly those must have been halcyon days for professors!

The journal also proves, by its brief account of a Scotch festival, which accords with little hints dropped elsewhere in it or in letters, that our forefathers, not wholly excluding men of science, some sixty years ago habitually consumed much more "strong drink" than would be considered correct at the present day: —

"It was just an Angus set-to of the old régime. They arrived at half-past six o'clock and waited dinner one hour. Gentlemen rejoined the ladies at half-past twelve o'clock! They, in the meantime, had had tea, and a regular supper laid out in the drawing-room. After an hour with the ladies they returned to the dining-room to supper at half-past one o'clock, and my father left them at half-past two o'clock! The ladies did not go to this supper."

The journal, in short, like the well-known Scotch dish, affords a great deal of "confused feeding" of a pleasant sort, but no samples of love-making. The nearest approach to it is in the following passage, which is worth quoting, not for that reason, but as incidentally disclosing the strength of the author's character: —

"I shall write a few words before I get into the steamboat just to tranquillise my mind a little, after reading several controversial articles by Elie de Beaumont and others against my system. If I find myself growing too warm or annoyed at such hostile demonstrations I shall always retreat to you. You will be my harbour of peace to retire to, and where I may forget the storm. I know that by persevering steadily I shall some years hence stand very differently from where I now am in science; and my only danger is the being impatient, and tempted to waste my time on petty controversies and quarrels about the priority of the discovery of this or that fact or theory."52

Friends in plenty were awaiting him in London, which was reached about the first of November: the Murchisons and Somervilles, Broderip, Curtis, Basil Hall, and Hooker, with Necker from Switzerland, and many more. He is also cheered by finding that his ideas are steadily gaining ground among geologists, converts becoming more confident, unbelievers more uneasy. He made good progress with his book, and realised, before the end of the year, that his materials could not be compressed into a single volume; so he determined to issue the part already completed as a second volume, and to finish the work in a third.

From time to time the diary contains references to a recent contest for the Presidency of the Royal Society, and to political matters such as the Reform Bill; but, though in favour of the latter, he is not very enthusiastic on the subject, for on one occasion he expresses regret at having been absent, through forgetfulness, from a meeting of the Geographical Society, where he would have "got some sound information instead of hearing politicians discuss the interminable bill."

The lectures at King's College evidently weighed upon his mind as they drew near, and he was not stirred to enthusiasm by the prospect of teaching; for towards the close of the year he more than once debated with his friends the question whether or no he should retain the appointment. Murchison was in favour of resignation; Conybeare took the opposite view. Of his advice Lyell remarks, "The fact is, Conybeare's notion of these things is what the English public have not yet come up to, which, if they had, the geological professorship in London would be a worthy aim for any man's ambition, whereas it is now one that the multitude would rather wonder at one's accepting."53 The British public apparently still lags a long way behind the Conybearian ideal, and retains its contempt for all those who, by presuming to teach, insinuate doubts as to its innate omniscience.

Lyell, however, clearly perceived that it was absolutely necessary that every teacher of professorial rank should be himself a pioneer in his subject – a fact of which government officials, as a rule, seem to be totally ignorant. His comments, a little later in the year, on the arrangements at the University of Bonn are worth recording. "The Professors have to lecture for nine months in the year – too much, I should think, for allowing time for due advancement of the teacher." Lyell's desires in regard to remuneration seem reasonable enough. He is anxious to earn by his scientific work enough to provide for the extra expenses which this work entails, and yet to command sufficient time to advance his knowledge and reputation. The fates proved more propitious to him than they are generally to men of science, for he succeeded in accomplishing both of his desires.

Little of importance happened during the early part of 1832. There was plenty of hard work in collecting facts, in consulting friends about special difficulties, and in working at the manuscript for the third volume of the "Principles," for the second made its appearance almost with the new year. Toil was sweetened by occasional pleasures, such as an evening with the Somervilles, or a dinner party at the Murchisons, a talk with Babbage or Fitton, or a symposium at the Geological Club, at which it is sometimes evident that good care was taken lest science should become too dry. One passage in his diary indicates that sixty years have considerably changed the habits of life in town and in the country, for at the present day most people would express themselves in the opposite sense. "I have enjoyed parties and two plays this month very much, because it was recreation stolen from work; but the difficulty in the country is that, on the contrary, one's hours of work are stolen from dissipation."

The lectures at King's College were begun in May. Lyell evidently was not a nervous man, but he regarded the near approach of this new kind of work with some trepidation, and admits that he slept ill before the first lecture. It was, however, a decided success in every respect, and the audience was a large one, for the Council, after some hesitation, had permitted the attendance of ladies. Each lecture was pronounced by the hearers to be better than the last, and Lyell uses the opportunity, as he says, to fire occasional shots at Buckland, Sedgwick, and others who are still hankering after catastrophic convulsions and all-but universal deluges. As a further encouragement, his publisher, Murray, agrees willingly to a reprint of the first volume of the "Principles," and only hesitates between an edition of 750 or of 1,000 copies. About this time, also, he was asked to undertake the presidency of the Geological Society, but that, notwithstanding Murchison's urgency, he firmly declined for the present; writing of it to Miss Horner, "It is just one of those temptations the resisting of which decides whether a man shall really rise high or not in science. For two more years I am free from les affaires administratives, which, said old Brochart in his late letter to me, have prevented me from studying geology d'une manière suivie, whereby you have already carried it so far."

He was, however, soon to be engrossed in an "affair" of another kind; one which has proved very detrimental to the progress of many men of science, but which, in Lyell's case, had the happiest results, and smoothed rather than it impeded his path to fame; for in the summer – on July 12th – he ceased to be a bachelor. The marriage was celebrated at Bonn, where Miss Horner's family were still resident. A Lutheran clergyman seems to have officiated, and the ceremony was a very quiet one; the distance from home preventing the attendance of English friends or even of relations of the bridegroom.

The newly-married couple departed from Bonn up the Rhine, and travelled by successive stages to Heidelberg, but they were not forgetful of geology, even in the first week of the honeymoon, for they visited as they journeyed more than one interesting section on the western edge of the Odenwald. Then they made excursions to Carlsruhe and Baden-Baden, and ultimately travelled from Freiburg to Schaffhausen through the romantic defiles of the Höllenthal, and across the corner of the Black Forest. A journal was now needless, and probably the newly-married couple were too much engrossed with their own happiness to write many letters, for few details have been preserved about their Swiss tour. It was, however, comparatively a short one, for they remained less than a fortnight in the country. Still Lyell probably found it useful in refreshing recollections and testing his early impressions by greatly increased knowledge and experience. From the valley of the Rhone they crossed the Simplon Pass into Italy and followed the usual road to Milan along the shore of the Lago Maggiore.

How long they remained in Italy, or by what route they returned to England, is not stated; indeed, for nearly six months next to nothing is on record concerning Lyell's movements or work, but in the beginning of 1833 he and his wife were settled in London at No. 16, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, which became their residence for some years. A state of happiness is not always indicated by much correspondence: probably it was so with Lyell; at any rate, a single letter, dated January 5th, gives the only information of his doings between September, 1832, and April, 1833. In this letter, however, he mentions that the Council of King's College had decided that in future ladies should not be admitted to Lyell's lectures, and that, in consequence, he had received a pressing invitation from the managers of the Royal Institution to give, after Easter, a course of six or eight lectures in their theatre, coupled with the offer of a substantial remuneration.