Charles Lyell and Modern Geology

by T. G. Bonney

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 Märjalen 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.