THE EVENING OF LIFE.
The second and third editions of the "Antiquity of Man" were not mere
reprints, since new materials were constantly coming in and researches
were continued; for during the summer of 1863 Sir Charles was rambling
about Wales, visiting the caves of Gower in Pembrokeshire, and of Cefn
in Denbighshire, the peats of Anglesea, and the boulder clay and
shell-bearing sands near the top of Moel Tryfaen. He also went over to
Paris, apparently about this time, to inquire into the authenticity of
specimens--bones with notches upon them--which were supposed to prove
man contemporaneous with the Cromer Forest Beds of England, and
therefore pre-glacial. Shorter journeys were to Osborne (by Royal
command), to Suffolk, and to Kent.
While engaged on the above-named book, he had persistently refused more
than one position of honour--such as a Trusteeship at the British
Museum, to be a candidate for the representation of the University of
London in Parliament, even an honorary degree from the University of
Edinburgh because he was too busy to undertake the journey. In 1861,
also, he seems to have received a warning that he was beginning to grow
old, for he became rather seriously unwell, and was ordered to Kissingen
in Bavaria to take a course of the waters. But during the same period
two acceptable honours were received--namely, the Corresponding
Membership of the Institute of France, in 1862, and an order of
Scientific Merit from the King of Prussia in the following year.
The years, as must be the case when life's evening shadows are
lengthening, begin to be more definitely chequered with losses and with
rewards. In his letters, references to the death of friends become
frequent. In 1862 Mrs. Horner, Lady Lyell's mother, died, and in 1864
her father, Leonard Horner, with whom, even for some years before
becoming his son-in-law, Lyell had been in constant friendly
correspondence, passed away in his eightieth year. In the same year
Lyell was raised to the rank of baronet, and also occupied the
presidential chair at the meeting of the British Association at Bath.
His address deals principally with two topics--one local, thermal
springs, especially those of Bath; the other general, the glacial epoch
and its relation to the antiquity of man. He refers, however, in the
concluding paragraph to the marked change which, within his memory,
opinion had undergone, in regard to catastrophic changes and the origin
of species, and to the discovery of the supposed fossil _Eozoon
Canadense_ in the crystalline Laurentian rocks of Canada. This singular
structure appeared to him--as it did to Sir W. Logan, who had brought
specimens for exhibition at the meeting--to be a fossil organism,[137]
and thus to indicate the existence of living creatures at a much
earlier period than hitherto had been supposed. But in stating this
opinion he checks himself characteristically with these words: "I will
not venture on speculations respecting 'the signs of a beginning,' or
'the prospects of an end' of our terrestrial system--that wide ocean of
scientific conjecture on which so many theorists before my time have
suffered shipwreck."
The address contains more than one passage that is well worth quotation,
but the following has so wide a bearing, and is so significant as to the
effects of early influences, that it should not be forgotten:--
"When speculations on the long series of events which
occurred in the Glacial and post-Glacial periods are
indulged in, the imagination is apt to take alarm at the
immensity of the time required to interpret the monuments of
these ages, all referable to the era of existing species. In
order to abridge the number of centuries which would
otherwise be indispensable, a disposition is shown by many
to magnify the rate of change in prehistoric times, by
investing the causes which have modified the animate and
inanimate world with extraordinary and excessive energy. It
is related of a great Irish orator of our day, that when he
was about to contribute somewhat parsimoniously towards a
public charity, he was persuaded by a friend to make a more
liberal donation. In doing so, he apologised for his first
apparent want of generosity by saying that his early life
had been a constant struggle with scanty means, and that
'they who are born to affluence cannot easily imagine how
long a time it takes to get the chill of poverty out of
one's bones.' In like manner, we of the living generation,
when called upon to make grants of thousands of centuries in
order to explain the events of what is called the modern
period, shrink naturally at first from making what seems to
be so lavish an expenditure of past time. Throughout our
early education we have been accustomed to such strict
economy in all that relates to the chronology of the earth
and its inhabitants in remote ages, so fettered have we been
by old traditional beliefs, that even when our reason is
convinced and we are persuaded that we ought to make more
liberal grants of time to the geologist, we feel how hard it
is to get the chill of poverty out of our bones."[138]
A presidential address to the British Association is no light task; but,
in addition to this, Lyell was now engaged upon a new edition of the
"Elements (or Manual) of Geology," which for some time had been urgently
demanded; the last edition also of the "Principles"--though 5,000 copies
had been printed--was practically exhausted. The former work was cleared
off before the end of the year, the book appearing in January, 1865, and
the latter was at once taken vigorously in hand, as we see from a letter
questioning Sir John Herschel about the earth-pillars on the
Rittnerhorn, near Botzen, and on the influence which changes in the
shape of the earth's orbit and the position of its axis would have upon
climate--a view which had been advocated by Dr. Croll. Lyell, it will be
remembered, had originally regarded geographical conditions as the only
factors which modified climate, but he was evidently impressed by
Croll's argument, and ready, if his mathematics were correct, to admit
astronomical changes as an independent, though probably less potent,
cause of variation.
The Christmas of 1864 and the following New Year were spent in Berlin,
and in the summer of 1865 he had again recourse to Kissingen. Though he
writes that the waters "did him neither harm nor good," he was at any
rate well enough after the "cure" to undertake a rather lengthy tour
with Lady Lyell and his nephew[139] Leonard, in the course of which he
examined for himself the wonderful earth-pillars near Botzen, and
visited the Maerjalen See, that pretty lake held up by the ice of the
great Aletsch Glacier, in order to see whether it threw any light on the
origin of the parallel roads of Glenroy. He was satisfied that it did,
for he found there a large terrace "exactly on a level with the col
which separates the valley" occupied by the lake from that of the Viesch
glacier. On his return to England, he writes a long letter to Sir John
Herschel, discussing the origin of these earth-pillars, and making
inquiries as to the precise points from which his friend, more than
forty years before, had made some elaborate drawings. The expedition, as
well as the letter, to quote Lyell's own words, were pretty well for a
man who was "battling with sixty-eight years." He complains, however, of
little more than occasional attacks of lumbago, and a necessity for
taking great care of himself; but his eyes were now more troublesome
than they had been, and for the last year he had been driven to avail
himself of the services of a secretary,[140] with the result that he
seemed to have acquired a new lease of his eyes, and to be able, for
ordinary purposes, to use them almost as well as formerly.
After his return from the Continent Sir Charles was working hard at the
new edition of the "Principles," which obviously gave him much trouble,
for letters still remain which were written to Herschel on questions
relating to climate and astronomy; to Hooker, Wallace, and Darwin on
the transmutation of species, the distribution and migration of plants
and animals, the effects of geographical changes, and even on such
matters as the Triassic reptilia of Elgin and Warwickshire, Central
India and the Cape. At last the first volume of the new and
much-enlarged edition (tenth) was published in November, 1866, the
second volume not appearing till 1868. Few men at that time of life
could have accomplished such a piece of work, especially if they had
been compelled, as Lyell was, to read with the eyes and write with the
hands of others. But even now, in regard to field work, he was still
able to see things for himself, and, though less vigorous than formerly,
to undertake journeys of moderate length. In 1866, in company with his
nephew Leonard, he examined the Glacial and late Tertiary deposits of
the Suffolk coasts; looked once more at the sections of Jurassic rocks
in the Isle of Portland and the neighbourhood of Weymouth, and doubtless
speculated on the origin of the Chesil Bank and of the Fleet. One honour
fell to him in this year, which, doubtless, only the accident of his
long service on the Council had previously kept from him--namely, the
Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society.
In 1867 he was strong enough to visit the Paris Exhibition, after which
he went to Forfarshire, and attended the meeting of the British
Association at Dundee. In the following year he was present at the same
gathering in Norwich, besides making various shorter journeys in England
and spending September in Pembrokeshire with Lady Lyell and his
brother's family,[141] in whose company evidently he took much pleasure.
In the spring of 1868 he was again in the field, examining the splendid
plant remains of Eocene age in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth and
Poole, and the shallow-water deposits of the Purbeck group ripple-marked
and sun-cracked, together with the traces of their ancient forests. Over
these he became as enthusiastic as any young geologist. At this time
also, apparently, he visited the Blackmore Museum[142] at Salisbury, and
himself found reindeer antlers in the neighbouring gravels at Fisherton.
In the autumn they again stayed at Tenby with Colonel Lyell's family,
when one of the latter was attacked by a serious illness. But Sir
Charles was able to take his nephew Leonard to St. David's, and examine
the magnificent sections of fossiliferous Cambrian rocks, under the
guidance of Dr. H. Hicks, whose name is inseparably connected with the
geology of this district.
Comparatively few records are preserved of the last six years of his
life; still they are enough to show that his interest in science never
flagged. The few letters which have been printed show no signs of
declining mental strength. Though his bodily powers had become less
vigorous, though his sight was weak, and his limbs were less firm than
in the olden times, he was by no means ready to be laid altogether on
the shelf. For instance, in the spring of 1869 he went back to the coast
of Suffolk and Norfolk, to resume work which he had been unable to
complete on his last visit.
Starting at Aldborough, where Pliocene deposits are still exposed, from
the Coralline Crag up to the Chillesford group, they examined the coasts
by Southwold and Kessingland to Lowestoft, seeing "a continuous section,
for miles unbroken, of the deposits from the upper part of the Pliocene
to the glacial drift." The Kessingland cliffs afforded good sections of
the "Forest Bed," the deposit which on former occasions he had studied
in the neighbourhood of Cromer. It was covered by several yards of
stratified sand, and that by glacial drift, "with the usual 'boulders'
of chalk, flint, lias, sandstone, and other sedimentaries, with
crystalline rocks from more distant places." Passing on into Norfolk,
they followed this "Forest Bed" and the overlying boulder clay, and they
found in the latter, near Happisburgh, some fragments of sea-shells, and
one perfect valve of _Tellina solidula_ in a band of gravel, "like a
fragment of an old sea-beach," intercalated in the glacial clay. As the
origin of this clay has been, of late years, a subject of dispute, it
may be interesting to quote Sir Charles's conclusion:--"I suppose,
therefore, we must set it down as a marine formation; and underneath it,
from Happisburgh to Cromer, comes the famous lignite bed and submarine
forest, which must have sunk down to allow of the unquestionable glacial
formation being everywhere superimposed."[143]
On revisiting Sherringham (a village about five miles along the coast to
the west of Cromer), he found a striking instance of that "sea change"
to which in his early days he had called attention. "Leonard and I" (he
writes to Sir C. Bunbury) "have just returned from Sherringham, where I
found that the splendid old Hythe pinnacle of chalk, in which the flints
were vertical, between seventy and eighty feet high, the grandest
erratic in the world, of which I gave a figure in the first edition of
my "Principles," has totally disappeared. The sea has advanced on the
lofty cliff so much in the last ten years, that it may well have carried
away the whole pinnacle in the thirty years which have elapsed since our
first visit."
Another letter, bearing date in the next month, to Darwin shows that in
his seventy-second year his mind was fresh and keen as ever. It
discusses an article written by Wallace in the _Quarterly Review_, and
indicates the difference in regard to natural selection between Lyell's
own standpoint and that of his correspondent. The following extract may
serve to show the general tenor of the remarks:--"As I feel that
progressive development in evolution cannot be entirely explained by
natural selection, I rather hail Wallace's suggestion that there may be
a Supreme Will and Power, which may not abdicate its functions of
interference, but may guide the forces and laws of Nature." In another
passage he refers, to a controversy which had been recently started by
Professor (afterwards Sir A.) Ramsay, and over which geologists have been
fighting ever since--viz. whether lake-basins are excavated by glaciers.
The passage is worth quoting, for it puts the issue in a form which
after a quarter of a century is virtually unchanged:--
"As to the scooping out of lake-basins by glaciers, I have
had a long, amicable, but controversial correspondence with
Wallace on that subject, and I cannot get over (as, indeed,
I have admitted in print) an intimate connection between the
number of lakes of modern date and the glaciation of the
regions containing them. But as we do not know how ice can
scoop out Lago Maggiore to a depth of 2,600 feet, of which
all but 600 is below the level of the sea, getting rid of
the rock supposed to be worn away as if it was salt that had
melted, I feel that it is a dangerous causation to admit in
explanation of every cavity which we have to account for,
including Lake Superior. They who use it seem to have it
always at hand, like the 'diluvial wave or the wave of
translation,' or the 'convulsion of nature or catastrophe'
of the old paroxysmists."[144]
In the summer he took a longer tour, going first to Westmoreland and
then to Forfarshire; after which, in company with Lady Lyell and his
nephew, he went to see the old rocks of Ross-shire, above Inchnadamff
and Ullapool, and, as he returned, once more visited the parallel roads
of Glenroy.
But, in the meantime, notwithstanding the difficulties mentioned above,
he still kept working at his books. He was now engaged in modifying the
"Elements of Geology." Of this, to quote the preface afterwards
published, he had published "six editions between the years 1838 and
1865, beginning with a small duodecimo volume, which increased with each
successive edition, as new facts accumulated, until in 1865 it had
become a large and somewhat expensive work." He therefore determined, in
accordance with the advice of friends, "to bring the book back again to
a size more nearly approaching the original, so that it might be within
the reach of the ordinary student." This was done by the omission of
certain theoretical discussions and all such references to Continental
geology as were not absolutely necessary.[145]
In 1870 Sir Charles continued to travel, though within the limits of
these islands, for he made one journey along the coast of North Devon,
and a second one to Scotland, in the course of which he visited the Isle
of Arran, and on his return halted first at Ambleside and then at
Liverpool, to attend the meeting of the British Association, which began
on the 14th of September. The following year he paid an April visit to
Tintagel, the Land's End, and other parts of Cornwall, and in the summer
went to the North of England. Writing from Penrith to Sir C. Bunbury, he
remarks "that he had much enjoyed his 'tour of inspection,' and had
tried to make it a tour of rest, which is difficult." Naturally so, for
he had been working his way from Buxton on the look-out for glacial
deposits and studying especially the stratified drifts on the hills east
of Macclesfield, 1,200 feet above the sea. His remarks on these show
that he appreciated fully both the significance of the marine fossils
which they contain and the theoretical difficulties caused by the
absence of such remains in other deposits, whether in Derbyshire or the
Lake District, or in the lowland between this locality and Moel Tryfaen,
seventy-four miles away.
The tenth edition of the "Principles" had been quickly sold, and Sir
Charles was now employed in the preparation of another one. In this less
change was necessary than on the last occasion; still, the rapid
increase of knowledge, more especially in regard to the temperature and
currents of the sea, obliged him to make considerable alterations in the
parts which dealt with these subjects and with questions of climate, so
that he recast or rewrote five chapters.
It was published in January, 1872; and in the summer of that year, no
doubt in view of a new edition of the "Antiquity of Man," he went to the
south of France, with Lady Lyell and Professor T. M'K. Hughes, to
examine the Aurignac cave. Here several human skeletons had been
discovered some years before, apparently entombed with the bones of
various extinct mammals, such as the cave-bear and lion, the mammoth and
woolly rhinoceros--in short, with a fauna characteristic of the
palaeolithic age. But was this really the date of the interment? Some
distinguished geologists were of opinion that, though the cave had been
then occupied by wild beasts, its floor had been disturbed, and the
corpses buried in neolithic times. On this point Lyell was unable to
obtain conclusive evidence, and was obliged to confine himself to a
statement of the facts and arguments on either side of the
question.[146]
Shortly after the publication of this new edition of the "Antiquity of
Man" in January, 1873, an unexpected and irreparable bereavement
darkened the evening of his days. On April 24th Lady Lyell, the
companion and helpmate of forty years, was taken from him after a few
days' illness from an inflammatory cold.[147] The shock was the more
severe because the loss was so unforeseen. Lady Lyell was twelve years
his junior, and had always enjoyed good health[148]--"youthful and
vigorous for her age," as he writes--so that he "never contemplated
surviving her, and could hardly believe it when the calamity happened."
He bore the blow bravely, consoling himself by reflecting that the
separation, at his age--nearly seventy-six--could not be for very long,
and, as he writes to Professor Heer, of Zuerich, endeavouring, "by daily
work at my favourite science, to forget as far as possible the dreadful
change which this has made in my existence."
Lady Lyell was a woman of rare excellence. "Strength and sweetness were
hers, both in no common degree. The daughter of Leonard Horner, and the
niece of Francis Horner, her own excellent understanding had been
carefully trained, and she had that general knowledge and those
intellectual tastes which we expect to find in an educated Englishwoman;
and from her childhood she had breathed the refining air of taste,
knowledge, and goodness. Her marriage ... gave a scientific turn to her
thoughts and studies, and she became to her husband, not merely the
truest of friends and the most affectionate and sympathetic of
companions, but a very efficient helper. She was frank, generous, and
true; her moral instincts were high and pure; she was faithful and firm
in friendship; she was fearless in the expression of opinion without
being aggressive; and she had that force of character and quiet energy
of temperament that gave her the power to do all that she had resolved
to do.... She had more than a common share of personal beauty; but had
she not been beautiful she would have been lovely, such was the charm of
her manners, which were the natural expression of warmth and tenderness
of heart, of quick sympathies, and of a tact as delicate as a blind
man's touch."[149]
He was not, however, left to bear in solitude the burden of darkening
sight and of a desolated home. His eldest sister, Miss Lyell, came from
Kinnordy to take care of his house and watch over him in these last
years with an affectionate devotion; and in her company and that of
Professor Hughes he even carried out the plan, which had been already in
contemplation, of once more going on to the Continent and of visiting
Professor Heer, at Zuerich.
He worked on, as well as slowly increasing infirmities allowed, after
his return to England, fully occupied in preparing a second edition of
the "Student's Elements" and a new one of the "Principles."[150] In
June, 1874, he again visited Cambridge, this time to receive the degree
of LL.D.--an honour which that University had been strangely slow in
conferring upon him.[151] It was then too evident that his strength was
declining, for he became quickly fatigued by any exertion of body or
mind; nevertheless, he was able soon afterwards to make once more the
journey to Forfarshire, and to visit there several of his earlier
geological haunts. In some of these little excursions he had as his
companion Mr. J. W. Judd,[152] with whose recent researches into the
ruined volcanoes of Tertiary age and the yet earlier stratified rocks in
the Western Isles of Scotland Sir Charles was hardly less interested
than he would have been in the days when the "Principles" was a new
book. Three or four letters written about this time have been
printed[153] which show, from their vigour and freshness, that the mind
was still keen and bright, though the bodily machinery was becoming
outworn. After his return to town he even ventured, on November 5th, to
dine at the Geological Club,[154] of which he had been a member from its
foundation, on its fiftieth anniversary meeting, and "spoke with a
vigour which surprised his friends."
The tale, however, is nearly told; the sands of life were running low.
"His failing eyesight and other infirmities now began to increase
rapidly, and towards the close of the year he became very feeble. But
his spirit was ever alive to his old beloved science, and his
affectionate interest and thought for those about him never failed. He
dined downstairs on Christmas Day with his brother's family, but shortly
after that kept to his room."
On February 22nd, 1875, Charles Lyell entered into his rest. The end may
have been slightly accelerated by two causes--one, the death, from
inflammation of the lungs, after a short illness, of his brother,[155]
Colonel Lyell, who, up to that time, had visited him almost daily; the
other, the shock given to his enfeebled system by accidentally falling
on the stairs a few weeks before. But in no case could it have been long
delayed; the bodily frame was outworn; the hour of rest had come.
His fellow-workers in science felt unanimously that but one place of
sepulture was worthy to receive the body of Charles Lyell--the Abbey of
Westminster, our national Valhalla. A memorial, bearing many important
signatures, was at once presented to Dean Stanley, who gave a willing
consent, and the interment took place with all due solemnity on Saturday
the 27th. The grave was dug in the north aisle of the nave, near that of
Woodward, one of the pioneers of British geology and the founder of the
chair of that science in the University of Cambridge. It is marked[156]
by a slab of Derbyshire marble, which bears this inscription:--
CHARLES LYELL,
BARONET, F.R.S.,
AUTHOR OF
"THE PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY."
BORN AT KINNORDY, IN FORFARSHIRE,
NOVEMBER 14, 1797;
DIED IN LONDON,
FEBRUARY 22, 1875.
THROUGHOUT A LONG AND LABORIOUS LIFE
HE SOUGHT THE MEANS OF DECIPHERING
THE FRAGMENTARY RECORDS
OF THE EARTH'S HISTORY
IN THE PATIENT INVESTIGATION
OF THE PRESENT ORDER OF NATURE,
ENLARGING THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE
AND LEAVING ON SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT
AN ENDURING INFLUENCE.
"O LORD, HOW GREAT ARE THY WORKS,
AND THY THOUGHTS ARE VERY DEEP.
PSALM XCII. 5.
Sir Charles, by his will, left to the Geological Society of London the
die, executed by Mr. Leonard Wyon, of a medal to be cast in bronze, and
awarded annually to some geologist of distinction, whether British or
foreign. He further left a sum of two thousand pounds, free of legacy
duty, to the Society, in trust, the interest of it to be applied as
follows:--Not less than one-third of it to accompany the medal, and the
remainder to be given, in one or more portions, for the furtherance of
the science. Sir Charles was succeeded in the family estates by his
nephew Leonard, the eldest son of Colonel Lyell, who lives at Kinnordy,
but has rebuilt the house. He was created a baronet in 1894.
FOOTNOTES:
[137] The nature of _Eozoon_, whether it be the remains of a foraminifer
of unusual size and peculiar habit of growth, or merely a very
exceptional arrangement of its constituent minerals, has been since the
above-named date a fruitful subject of controversy. For some years the
balance of opinion was in favour of an organic origin; now it seems to
be distinctly tending in the other direction.
[138] Report of Brit. Assoc., 1864, p. xxiv.
[139] Colonel Lyell's eldest son, the present baronet.
[140] He was fortunate in obtaining the help of Miss Arabella Buckley, a
lady of congenial tastes in literature and science.
[141] The relationship was unusually close, for Colonel Lyell had
married another Miss Horner.
[142] For a description of this fine collection of prehistoric
antiquities, _see_ "Flint Chips," by E. T. Stevens, 1870.
[143] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. p. 440.
[144] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. p. 443.
[145] The book, thus abbreviated, and entitled "The Student's Elements
of Geology," was published in 1871. A second edition appeared in
February, 1874; a third, revised by Mr. Leonard Lyell and others, in
1878; and a fourth, edited by Prof. P. M. Duncan, in 1885.
[146] "Antiquity of Man" (fourth edition), chap. vii.
[147] She had been suffering from influenza, but had accompanied her
husband and nephews to Ludlow at the beginning of the month. They became
uneasy at her increasing debility, and returned to town on the 14th
("Life, Letters, and Journal of Sir C. Bunbury," iii. p. 9).
[148] He mentions, on January 5th, 1856, that she had not been well
enough to breakfast with him, "for the second time only since our
marriage."
[149] Quoted from an obituary notice by G. S. Hillard, Esq., in the
Boston (U.S.) _Daily Advertiser_ (printed in Life, Letters, and
Journals, ii. p. 467).
[150] This was published after his death. He had completed one volume;
the other was revised by his nephew Leonard.
[151] About the same time he was admitted to the freedom of the Turners'
Company in the City of London.
[152] Now Professor Judd, F.R.S., of the Royal College of Science, South
Kensington.
[153] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. pp. 453-459.
[154] The Club consists of a certain number of Fellows of the Geological
Society, who dine together before the evening meetings.
[155] His brother Thomas, who had retired from the Navy with the rank of
captain, had died (unmarried) some years before at the jointure house
(Shiel Hill), Kinnordy, where he had resided with one of his sisters.
[156] A marble bust, a copy by Theed of the original executed by Gibson,
is placed near the grave.