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. Prevost 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 idees! Comme nous allons nous
moquer de nous-memes!' 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
separe, d'une maniere si tranchee, 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
nebulae 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
Vendee. 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 Bagneres 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 thus[37]:--
"The quiet and perfect order and calmness that reigned at
Bourbon, Vendee, 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
Ariege 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 France[38]:--
"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 Breche 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 Breche, 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."
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 letter[47] (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 scoriae 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 sermon[50]:--
"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 records[51] 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 _regime_. 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
maniere 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 Hoellenthal, 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.
At the end of April, as he tells his old friend Mantell, both these
courses had been begun. The one at the Royal Institution was attended by
an audience of about 250, that at King's College, after the opening
lecture, dropped down to a class of fifteen. The falling-off was
entirely due to the above-named resolution. For this the Council had
assigned a reason, which, perhaps, was not a prudent course, for bodies
of that kind, when they give reasons, often succeed only in "giving
themselves away." The presence of ladies was forbidden, "because it
diverted the attention of the young students, of whom," Lyell remarks
sarcastically, "I had _two_ in number from the college last year and
_two_ this." Had the Council stated boldly that the College did not
appoint professors to lecture _urbi et orbi_, their policy, though it
would have appeared a little selfish and might have proved shortsighted,
would have been defensible, because the institution was founded for the
education of a particular class. But the reason assigned was open to
Lyell's retort, and gave the impression of unreality. It is not
impossible that the decision was the result of secret "wire-pulling,"
and represented not so much a fear of the disturbing influence of the
fair sex as a dread of the popularity of the subject. Geology was still
regarded with grave distrust by a very large number of people, and
King's College, it must be remembered, was founded in the supposed
interests of the Church of England and in the hope of neutralising the
effects of the unsectarian institution in Gower Street. Many of its
supporters may have been characterised rather by the ardour of their
dislikes than by the width of their sympathies, and may have put
pressure on the Council, so that this body may have considered it safer
to risk driving a popular man from their staff than to alienate an
important section of their adherents and to expose the College to the
danger of being charged with lending itself to heretical teaching.[54]
The preparation of these lectures must have been attended with some
difficulty, for Lyell writes that, "like all the world," he and his
household--everyone except his wife--had been down with the influenza,
which in that year was even more rampant in London than it has been in
any of its recent visits. But, notwithstanding this and any other
interruptions, the third and final volume of the "Principles of Geology"
made its appearance in the month of May, 1833.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 255.
[30] _Ut supra_, p. 256.
[31] Further work has not verified some of these statements. There can
be no question that a great deal of rock in the Alps is much older than
even the Trias. The apparent superposition of crystalline schists to
rocks with fossils is due to over-folding or over-thrust
faulting--_i.e._ the schists are the older rocks. Though the Secondary
rocks of the Alps have undergone, in places, some modification and
mineral changes, these are very different from the metamorphism of those
crystalline schists which have a stratified origin.
[32] Now "University College," London, having been incorporated by Royal
Charter under that title in November, 1836.
[33] _Ut supra_, p. 258.
[34] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. pp. 269-271.
[35] When he left the publisher had not decided whether it should be
issued at once or kept back till October.
[36] D'Aubuisson, as time has shown, foresaw a real danger. The neglect
of, if not contempt for, mineralogy, which became conspicuous between
the years 1840 and 1870, or thereabouts, seriously impeded the progress
of geology, at any rate in England.
[37] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 276.
[38] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 283.
[39] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 296.
[40] Subsequent experience has shown that, while the above observations
are beyond all question in the case of ordinary sedimentary rocks,
structures curiously resembling lamination and ripple-mark may be
produced in certain gneisses and crystalline schists by other causes.
Still, in many schists, they have originated in the way suggested by
Lyell, and indicate that the rock formerly was deposited by water.
[41] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 303.
[42] _Ut supra_, p. 305.
[43] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 313.
[44] The Rev. W. D. Conybeare, afterwards Dean of Llandaff, an eminent
geologist, rather senior to Lyell.
[45] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 316.
[46] It was formerly conceded by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge,
and Dublin that a Master of Arts in any one could assume, under certain
conditions, the same position in the others. This carried with it some
privileges, though not the suffrage and the full rights of the degree.
Lyell had proceeded to the degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1821.
[47] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 318.
[48] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 328.
[49] _Ut supra_, p. 329. By the end of October it had not only ceased to
grow, but also had been nearly washed away by the sea. Now its position
is marked by a shoal.
[50] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 331.
[51] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 342.
[52] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 347.
[53] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 358.
[54] Lyell resigned the Professorship after he had finished the course.