Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
childhood between the family home in Scotland, and another leased
by this father near the New Forest in Hampshire in England. He
studied classics and mathematics at Exeter College, Oxford, but later
turned his attention to geology, after his reading in 1816 of Robert
Bakewell's (1768-1843) Introduction to Geology, which he had found
on the shelves of his father's library. Such was the influence of this
book that Lyell took time out from his premier studies to attend the
lectures of the Professor of Geology, the flamboyant William
Buckland, who later was to engage in a close study of coprolites (fossil
faeces) produced by the marine reptiles found fossilised in the Jurassic
successions of southern England. Immediately, and unsurprisingly
given Buckland's dynamic enthusiasm, Lyell was gripped by this
science that was new to him. Evidence of this newly found devotion
is documented in a series of letters written by him while still an
undergraduate at Oxford, in which he jotted down observations on
the geological nature of areas through which he had travelled on his
return to Scotland. After Oxford he embarked on a tour of France,
Switzerland and Italy in the company of his family, during which he
honed his geological ideas. Lyell was fluent in several European lan-
guages, which allowed him to interact and correspond most effec-
tively with the leading continental geologists of his day. In this
respect he was not isolated geologically from their influence as were
many of his British contemporaries.
After a brief period as an academic in London (he had been
appointed as Professor of Geology at King's College, London in 1831
but resigned his chair two years later) Lyell occupied his time as a
gentleman of science and travelled extensively in search of geological
evidence. He was closely associated with the Geological Society in
London where he served in several posts including, twice, that of
President. Lyell was somewhat of a geological maverick; he popularised
the subject through his highly successful textbooks and delivered
lectures to huge audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. His major
claim to fame lay in the success of his two great textbooks Principles
of Geology, which first appeared in 1830 and which went through
