Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet,(14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was aBritishgeologist.He was the foremost geologist of his day, and an influence on the youngCharles Darwin.His work was rewarded with aknighthood,and later he was created a hereditarybaronet.
The house of his birth is in theScottish Lowlands.it is in the valley of theHighland Boundary Fault,one of the great features of Scottish geology. Round the house is farmland, but within a short distance to the north-west are theGrampianMountainsin theScottish Highlands.
Charles would have seen this view from his house as a child. He was also fortunate that his family's second home was in a completely different area: at Bartley Lodge in theNew Forest,England.Both these places lit his interest in the natural world.
Lyell was a rich man, and earned more money as an author. He came from a prosperous family, and worked briefly as a lawyer in the 1820s. He held was a Professor ofGeologyatKing's College Londonin the 1830s. From 1830 onward his books gave him both income and fame.
Lyell'sPrinciples of Geologywas his most famous and most important book. It was first published in three volumes, in 1830–33. The book was about the ideas ofJames Hutton,but with many additions, improvements and examples. The book made Lyell to be known as an important geological theorist. It was a work ofsynthesis,backed by his own personal observations on his travels.
The central argument inPrincipleswas thatthe present is the key to the past.This was called byWilliam Whewell'uniformitarianism'. Geological remains from the distant past are explained by processes we can see operating now. Lyell's interpretation of geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time was a big influence on his young friend,Charles Darwin.
Other websites
[change|change source]- Charles Lyell-Citizendium