Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

The observation was perfectly correct, and many like instances could be found in the Alps; nevertheless, Sedgwick was right in his generalisation, and the two structures are perfectly independent, though the difficulty raised by Lyell did not disappear till the true cause of slaty cleavage was recognised – viz. that it is a result of pressure. Thus, in a region like the Alps, where the strata often have been so completely folded as to be bent, so to say, back to back, the planes of cleavage, which are produced when the rocks can no longer yield to the pressure by bending, necessarily coincide with those of bedding. Still, even in these cases, if careful search be made in the vicinity, some minor flexure generally betrays the secret, and exhibits the cleavage structure cutting across that of bedding.

The next year, 1836, flowed on, like the last, quietly and uneventfully; a fifth edition of the "Principles" was passing through the press; the "Elements of Geology" was making progress, though slowly; and Lyell's duties as President of the Geological Society, which involved the delivery of an address in the month of February and the preparation of another one for the same season in the following year, occupied a good deal of his time. The summer was spent in a long visit to his parents at Kinnordy, after which he and Mrs. Lyell made some stay in the Isle of Arran before they returned to London. The latter seemingly had been rather out of health, and this may have been the reason why a longer journey was not undertaken, but she must have found the Scotch air a complete restorative, for after her return to London in the autumn Lyell writes to his father that "everyone is much struck with the improvement in Mary's health and appearance."

But one letter, of the few which have been preserved from those written in 1836, possesses a special interest, for it expresses his ideas, at this epoch, in regard to the question of the origin of species, and indicates his freedom from prejudice and the openness of his mind. It is addressed to Sir John Herschel, then engaged in his memorable investigations at the Cape of Good Hope, who had favoured him with some valuable comments and criticisms on the Principles of Geology, and in the course of these had corrected a mistake which Lyell had made in regard to a rather difficult physical question. In referring to this, the latter remarks that the clearness of the mathematical reasoning (to quote his words) "made me regret that I had not given some of the years which I devoted to Greek plays and Aristotle at Oxford, and afterwards to law and other desultory pursuits, to mathematics." Doubtless there is hardly any better foundation for geology than a course of mathematics; at the same time, classical studies did much to give Lyell his lucidity and elegance of style, and thus to ensure the success of the "Principles of Geology."

It will be best to give Lyell's own words, for the document forms an appendix or lengthy postscript. As is incidentally mentioned, it was not in his own handwriting,81 and thus probably was drawn up with rather more than usual care.

"In regard to the origination of new species, I am very glad to find that you think it probable it may be carried on through the intervention of intermediate causes. I left this rather to be inferred, not thinking it worth while to offend a certain class of persons by embodying in words what would only be a speculation… When I first came to the notion – which I never saw expressed elsewhere, though I have no doubt it had all been thought out before – of a succession of extinction of species, and creation of new ones, going on perpetually now, and through an indefinite period of the past, and to continue for ages to come, all in accommodation to the changes which must continue in the inanimate and habitable earth, the idea struck me as the grandest which I had ever conceived, so far as regards the attributes of the Presiding Mind. For one can in imagination summon before us a small part82 at least of the circumstances which must be contemplated and foreknown, before it can be decided what powers and qualities a new species must have in order to enable it to endure for a given time, and to play its part in due relation to all other beings destined to coexist with it, before it dies out. It might be necessary, perhaps, to be able to know the number by which each species would be represented in a given region 10,000 years hence, as much as for Babbage to find what would be the place of every wheel in his new calculating machine at each movement.

"It may be seen that unless some slight additional precaution be taken, the species about to be born would at a certain era be reduced to too low a number. There may be a thousand modes of ensuring its duration beyond that time; one, for example, may be the rendering it more prolific, but this would perhaps make it press too hard upon other species at other times. Now, if it be an insect it may be made in one of its transformations to resemble a dead stick, or a lichen, or a stone, so as to be less easily found by its enemies; or if this would make it too strong, an occasional variety of the species may have this advantage conferred upon it; or if this would be still too much, one sex of a certain variety. Probably there is scarcely a dash of colour on the wing or body, of which the choice would be quite arbitrary, or what might not affect its duration for thousands of years. I have been told that the leaf-like expansions of the abdomen and thighs of a certain Brazilian Mantis turn from green to yellow as autumn advances, together with the leaves of the plants among which it seeks for its prey. Now if species come in in succession, such contrivances must sometimes be made, and such relations predetermined between species, as the Mantis for example, and plants not then existing, but which it was foreseen would exist together with some particular climate at a given time. But I cannot do justice to this train of speculation in a letter, and will only say that it seems to me to offer a more beautiful subject for reasoning and reflecting on, than the notion of great batches of species all coming in, and afterwards going out at once."

Early in October Charles Darwin, for whose return from his noted voyage on the Beagle Lyell had more than once expressed an earnest desire, arrived in England, bringing with him a large collection of specimens and almost innumerable facts, geological and biological, the fruits of his travels. The biological observations slowly ripened in Darwin's mind till they had for their final result the "Origin of Species." The geological stirred Lyell to immediate enthusiasm, for they afforded a valuable support to some of the ideas which he had put forward to the "Principles." "The idea of the Pampas going up," he writes to Darwin, "at the rate of an inch a century, while the Western Coast and Andes rise many feet and unequally, has long been a dream of mine. What a splendid field you have to write upon!" The enthusiasm evidently was not confined to words, for Darwin himself says in writing to Professor Henslow, "Mr. Lyell has entered in the most good-natured manner, and almost without being asked, into all my plans."83 The letter to Darwin,84 which is quoted above, also contains a characteristic piece of advice.

"Don't accept any official scientific place if you can avoid it, and tell no one I gave you this advice, as they would all cry out against me as the preacher of anti-patriotic principles. I fought against the calamity of being President [of the Geological Society] as long as I could. All has gone on smoothly, and it has not cost me more time than I anticipated; but my question is, whether the time annihilated by learned bodies ('par les affaires administratives') is balanced by any good they do. Fancy exchanging Herschel at the Cape for Herschel as President of the Royal Society, which he so narrowly escaped being, and I voting for him too! I hope to be forgiven for that. At least, work as I did, exclusively for yourself and for Science for many years, and do not prematurely incur the honour or the penalty of official dignities. There are people who may be profitably employed in such duties, because they would not work if not so engaged."

Not very altruistic advice, it may be feared, but nevertheless bearing the stamp of practical wisdom. Committee-work and other official duties are terrible wasters of time, and thus, although often necessary and inevitable, are rightly regarded as evils. Many men, as Lyell intimates, have been seriously hindered in researches for which they were exceptionally fitted by allowing themselves to be at everyone's beck and call, and getting their days cut to shreds by meetings. So far has this gone in some cases, that the high promise of early days has been very inadequately fulfilled, and some great piece of work has been never completed. If the spirit in which Lyell writes were more frequent, the common illusion that workers in science belong to some inferior branch of the public service would be dispelled, and the business of scientific societies would sometimes run more smoothly; at any rate, it would be finished more quickly, because no one would care to waste time over splitting hairs, and hunting for knots in a bullrush.85

The year 1837, like the preceding one, was spent in quiet work, though three months of the summer were devoted to a journey on the Continent. As regards the former, it is evident that the book on which he was engaged had caused him more than ordinary difficulty, for it appears to have progressed more slowly than can be explained either by the duties of the Presidential chair, which he resigned in the month of February of this year, or by any distraction caused by other scientific work. But a sentence in a letter written to one of his sisters at the beginning of May throws some light on the cause of the delay. He says, "I have at last struck out a plan for the future splitting of the 'Principles' into 'Principles' and 'Elements' as two separate works, which pleases me very much, so now I shall get on rapidly."

The summer journey was to Denmark and the south of Norway, and this time Mrs. Lyell was able to bear him company. They left London early in June for Hamburg, crossing Holstein to Kiel, and travelling thence to Copenhagen. Here he set to work at once with Dr. Beck to study fossil shells, in the Crown Prince's cabinet and in the other museums of the city. Questions had arisen as to the nomenclature of various fossil species to which Lyell had referred in his book, on which Dr. Beck differed from Deshayes, so that Lyell was anxious to investigate some of the points for himself, and to see the original type-specimens in Linnæus' collection, since these, in some cases, had been wrongly identified by Lamarck and other palæontologists. During a drive with the Crown Prince, he had the opportunity of examining an interesting section of the drift a few miles from Copenhagen, where it "was composed to a great depth of innumerable rolled blocks of chalk with a few of granite intermixed. Fossils were numerous in the chalk… Prince Christian set four men to work, while the horses were baiting, to clear away the talus, by which I saw that the boulders of chalk were in fact in beds, with occasional layers of sand between."

On reaching Norway Lyell made several expeditions from Christiania, in the course of which he examined a clay which occupies valleys and other parts of the granite region. This, which sometimes is found more than 600 feet above sea-level, he states "is a marine deposit containing recent species of shells, such as now inhabit the fjords of Norway."

This visit to Norway gave Lyell the opportunity of dispelling some erroneous ideas as to the relation of the granite to the "transition" (or lower Palæozoic) strata. This granite he found to be intrusive into these rocks, and into the much more ancient gneiss on which they rested. The sedimentary rocks near the junction were much altered, the limestones being changed into marble, the shale into micaceous schists; the fossils being more completely obliterated in the latter than in the former case. Some remarks which he makes as to the relations of the granite and gneiss indicate the closeness and carefulness of his observations. "This gneiss … this most ancient rock is so beautifully soldered on to the granite, so nicely threaded by veins large and small, or in other cases so shades into the granite, that had you not known the immense difference in age, you would be half-staggered with the suspicion that all was made at one batch."86

From Copenhagen, on their return, they went to Lübeck and drove thence to Hamburg, across the sand and boulder formation of the Baltic, and so through the north of Germany. Among these boulders Lyell recognised the red granite, which he had seen in Norway sending off veins into the orthoceratite limestones and associated Silurian rocks. This "had been carried, with small gravel of the same, by ice of course, over the south of Norway, and thence down the south-west of Sweden, and all over Jutland and Holstein down to the Elbe, from whence they come to the Weser, and so to this or near this (Wesel-on-the-Rhine). But it is curious that about Münster and Osnabruck, the low Secondary mountains have stopped them; hills of chalk, Muschelkalk, old coal, etc., which rise a few hundred feet in general above the great plain of north and north-west Germany, effectually arrest their passage. This then was already dry land when Holstein, and all the Baltic as far as Osnabruck or the Teutoberger Waldhills, was submerged."87

At the end of September they returned to London through Paris and Normandy, and the rest of the year was mainly devoted to the completion of the "Elements of Geology." Little seems to have happened in the earlier part of the next year (1838); and in the summer Lyell went northward, halting on the way, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, to attend the meeting of the British Association. Here he was made President of the Geological Section, which appears to have been very successful, for he writes that the section was crowded – from 1,000 to 1,500 persons always present. The meeting, altogether, was a large one; but as the total number of tickets issued only amounted to 2,400, it seems probable that the general public was admitted more freely than is the custom at the present day. Sedgwick also on one occasion attracted a large crowd, for we are told that he delivered a most eloquent lecture "to 3,000 people on the Sea-shore." Geology, no doubt, has made great advances since that day, little more than half a century ago, but at the cost of much loss of attractiveness. It was then simple in its terminology, and fairly intelligible to people of ordinary education; now these are frightened away by papers bristling with technical terms and Greek-born words, and nothing but the prospect of a "scrimmage" would draw together 500 people to a meeting of Section C at the present day. Commonly the audience hardly amounts to one-fifth of that number. Geologists, perhaps, might consider with advantage whether a little abstinence from long words might not make the science more generally intelligible, and thus more attractive, without any loss of real precision.

The "Elements of Geology" was finally published a few weeks before the Newcastle meeting, and the work of recasting the "Principles" went on at intervals in preparation for the sixth edition, which appeared in 1840. If, in accordance with the maxim, a nation is happy which has no history, Lyell ought to have passed almost a year in a state of felicity, for nothing is recorded between September 6th, 1838, when he writes to Charles Darwin from Kinnordy, and August 1st, 1839, when he writes to Dr. Fitton from the same place. Both these letters are interesting. The former discusses the relation of Darwin's theory of the formation of coral islands with E. de Beaumont's idea of the contemporaneity of parallel mountain chains, which has been already mentioned. One passage also throws light upon the difficulties with which the British Association in its earlier days had to contend. Some of the most influential newspapers had set themselves to write it down – needless to say, without success. Good sense sometimes is too strong even for newspapers. But Lyell thus urges Darwin88: —

"Do not let Broderip, or the Times or the Age or John Bull, nor any papers, whether of saints or sinners, induce you to join in running down the British Association. I do not mean to insinuate that you ever did so, but I have myself often seen its faults in a strong light, and am aware of what may be urged against philosophers turning public orators, etc. But I am convinced – although it is not the way I love to spend my own time – that in this country no importance is attached to any body of men who do not make occasional demonstrations of their strength in public meetings. It is a country where, as Tom Moore justly complained, a most exaggerated importance is attached to the faculty of thinking on your legs, and where, as Dan O'Connell very well knows, nothing is to be got in the way of homage or influence, or even a fair share of power, without agitation."

Far-reaching words, the truth of which has been demonstrated again and again during the years which have elapsed since they were written. Lyell lays his finger on the weakest spot in the nature of the true-born Briton: he is deaf to quiet reasoning, and frightened by loud shoutings.

The second letter, that of 1839, is addressed to Dr. Fitton, who had written for the Edinburgh Review a criticism of the "Principles of Geology," in which he had expressed the opinion that Lyell had insufficiently acknowledged the value of Hutton's work. From this charge Lyell defends himself, pointing out that, valuable as were Hutton's contributions to the philosophy of geology, he was by no means the first in the field – that there were also "mighty men of old" to whom he felt bound to do justice, even at the risk of seeming to undervalue the great Scotchman. He points out that Hutton's work occupies a fair amount of space in the section of the "Principles" which is devoted to an historical sketch of the earlier geologists: —

"In my first chapter," he writes, "I gave Hutton credit for first separating geology from other sciences, and declaring it to have no concern with the origin of things;89 and after rapidly discussing a great number of celebrated writers, I pause to give, comparatively speaking, full-length portraits of Werner and Hutton, giving the latter the decided palm of theoretical excellence, and alluding to the two grand points in which he advanced the science – first, the igneous origin of granite; secondly, that the so-called primitive rocks were altered strata.90 I dwelt emphatically on the complete revolution brought about by his new views respecting granite, and entered fully on Playfair's illustrations and defence of Hutton… The mottoes of my first two volumes were especially selected from Playfair's 'Huttonian Theory' because – although I was brought round slowly, against some of my early prejudices, to adopt Playfair's doctrines to the full extent – I was desirous to acknowledge his and Hutton's priority. And I have a letter of Basil Hall's, in which, after speaking of points in which Hutton approached nearer to my doctrines than his father, Sir James Hall, he comments on the manner in which my very title-page did homage to the Huttonians, and complimented me for thus disavowing all pretensions to be the originator of the theory of the adequacy of modern causes."91

In the following month Lyell attended a meeting of the British Association at Birmingham, and was invited, together with several of the leading men of science there present, to dine and spend the night at Drayton Manor, the residence of Sir R. Peel, near Tamworth. In a letter to one of his sisters, Lyell gives an interesting sketch of his impressions of the great statesman: —

"Some of the party said next day that Peel never gave an opinion for or against any point from extra-caution, but I really thought that he expressed himself as freely, even on subjects bordering on the political, as a well-bred man could do when talking to another with whose opinions he was unacquainted. He was very curious to know what Vernon Harcourt [the President for that year] had said on the connection of religion and science. I told him of it, and my own ideas, and in the middle of my strictures on the Dean of York's pamphlet92 I exclaimed, 'By-the-bye, I have only just remembered that he is your brother-in-law.' He said, 'Yes, he is a clever man and a good writer, but if men will not read any one book written by scientific men on such a subject, they must take the consequences.' … If I had not known Sir Robert's extensive acquirements, I should only have thought him an intelligent, well-informed country gentleman; not slow, but without any quickness, free from that kind of party feeling which prevents men from appreciating those who differ from them, taking pleasure in improvements, without enthusiasm, not capable of joining in a hearty laugh at a good joke, but cheerful, and not preventing Lord Northampton, Whewell, and others from making merry. He is without a tincture of science, and interested in it only so far as knowing its importance in the arts, and as a subject with which a large body of persons of talent are occupied."93

The next year (1840) appears to have slipped away uneventfully, for only a single letter serves as a record for the twelvemonth, and that is but a short one addressed to Babbage asking him to look up one or two geological matters during a journey through Normandy to Paris. As it is dated from London on the 11th of August, this looks as if Lyell did not go during the summer farther than Scotland, where he presided over the Geological Section at the meeting of the British Association.94 The earlier part of 1841 appears to have been equally uneventful; but the summer of that year saw the beginning of a long journey and the opening of a new geological horizon, for Mr. and Mrs. Lyell crossed the Atlantic on a visit to Canada and the United States.

CHAPTER VII.

GEOLOGICAL WORK IN NORTH AMERICA

This is a summary of their doings on the opposite side of the Atlantic in Lyell's own words: "In all, we were absent about thirteen months, less than one of them being spent on the ocean, nearly ten in active geological field work, and a little more than two in cities, during which I gave by invitation some geological lectures to large and most patient audiences."

To this may be added "three dozen boxes of specimens," and a mass of notes on the raised beaches of the Canadian lakes, the glacial drift, the falls of Niagara, and other questions of post-tertiary geology, as well as on the tertiary, cretaceous, coal, and older rocks. These afterwards produced a crop of about twenty papers, which appeared in various scientific periodicals. The principal results and the general impressions of the journey were worked up into a book entitled "Travels in North America," which was published in 1845.

A geologist who has been trained among the scenery of Britain finds his first view of the Alps to be the beginning of a new chapter in the Book of Nature, but a visit to America more like the beginning of a new volume. There almost everything is on a colossal scale – rivers, lakes, forests, prairies, distances, such as cannot be matched, at any rate in the more accessible parts of Europe. One may read of plains where the sun rises and sets as from a sea; of lakes, like Superior, as big as Ireland; of falls, like Niagara, where the neighbouring ground never ceases to quiver with the thud of the precipitated water; of rivers well nigh half a league wide while their waters still are far from the sea. But such things must be seen to be realised. In our own island Nature seems to be working at the present time on a scale comparatively puny; she must be watched as she puts forth her full strength before the adequacy of modern causes can be duly appreciated, and the history of the past can be understood by comparing it with that of the present.

The invitation to cross the Atlantic hardly could have reached Lyell at a more opportune epoch of his life. In his forty-fourth year, he was in full vigour both of mind and of body. A long course of study and of travel in Europe had trained him to be a keen observer, had enabled him to appreciate the significance of phenomena, and had supplied him with stores of knowledge on which he could draw for the interpretation of difficulties. America also offered a splendid field for work. Much of the country had been settled and brought under cultivation at no distant date; new tracts were being made accessible almost daily. Geologists of mark were few and far between, so that large areas awaited exploration, and in many places the traveller found a virgin field. The Geological Survey of Canada was just then being organised, the labours of the National Survey in the United States had not yet begun, though State surveys were at work, and had already borne good fruit. Indeed, while Lyell was in the country, the third meeting of the Association of American Geologists was held at Boston, and among those present were several men whose names will always occupy an honoured place in the history of the science. Still, at almost every step the observer might be rewarded by some discovery or by some fascinating problem which would give a direction to his future work.