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Charles Lyell Speaks in the Lecture Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Martin J. S. Rudwigk
Martin J. S. Rudwigk
Affiliation:
Unit for History and Social Aspects of Science, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1083, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Extract

For many of those who attended the Charles Lyell Centenary Symposium, one of the high points was the reappearance of Lyell himself (ably impersonated by John Thackray) in the lecture theatre of the Royal Institution, where some extracts from his London lectures of 1832–3 gave a vivid demonstration of his persuasive rhetoric. These extracts were also felt to illustrate Lyell's characteristic method of geological interpretation and his deeper concerns with the implications of his science, perhaps more clearly than in other published material from the earlier part of his career. At the request of several members of the symposium, I therefore give here a full version of these passages, without the ‘cuts’ and minor alterations that were necessary for the ‘performing script’. The purpose of this paper is simply to make this source-material more accessible, so that it can be used to enrich our understanding of Lyell's approach to geology at this period. I have recently published an account of the circumstances of Lyell's lectures at King's College London in 1832–3 and those at the Royal Institution in 1833, with a summary of their contents, so I shall present these fuller extracts here with the minimum of editorial notes. The two passages chosen are the longest and most continuous of those which Lyell wrote out in full rather than in note form.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1976 , pp. 147 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1976

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References

REFERENCES

1Rudwick, Martin J. S., ‘Charles Lyell, F.R.S. (1799–1875) and his London lectures on geology, 1832–1833’, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxix (1975), 231–63.Google Scholar
I take this opportunity of correcting my paper on two points. First, in mentioning that Lyell accepted a teaching post at King's College rather than University College, I overlooked the evidence that his name was actually mentioned in connexion with a possible chair of geology at the latter institution, and that he himself wrote to Leonard Horner to disclaim interest in it, chiefly on financial grounds: see [Mrs] Lyell, K. M. (ed.), Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (2 vols., London, 1881), i. 257–8.Google Scholar
I am grateful to Dr Joan Eyles for pointing out this omission to me. Secondly, an article published almost simultaneously with mine has shown that John Phillips, who was later elected to the chair at King's after Lyell's resignation, actually gave a course of lectures at University College (though without holding a chair there) as early as 1831; see Edmonds, J. M., ‘The first geological lecture-course at the University of London 1831’, Annals of science, xxxii (1975), 257–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Lyell's lecture notes are preserved in the University Library in Edinburgh (Lyell MSS., 8). I am indebted to Mr C. P. Finlayson and the staff of the Manuscript Room for assistance in consulting them, and to the Library for permission to publish these extracts. The transcribed passages are from Lyell MSS. 8, packet 11, pp. 4–13, and packet 13, pp. 1–10, respectively. The pages of the manuscripts are indicated in the transcriptions by numbers in square brackets. In the interests of clarity I have expanded Lyell's many routine and uncontroversial abbreviations (e.g. ‘geoll.’ for ‘geological’), and I have added several commas to his rather sparse punctuation. In order to give the full effect of these passages, I have inserted several quotations to which Lyell refers in the manuscripts, while giving in the relevant footnotes the evidence on which these reconstructions have been made.Google Scholar
3 Lyell's usual misquotation of what is perhaps the most famous epigram in the history of geology. Compare his Principles of geology, vol. i (London, 1830), p. 63, withCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutton, James, Theory of the earth (Edinburgh, 1795), i. 200.Google Scholar
4 The foregoing passage is a direct quotation, with some minor inaccuracies, from Playfair, John, Illustrations of the Huttonian theory of the earth (Edinburgh, 1802), pp. 119–20.Google Scholar
5Prichard, James Cowles, Researches on the physical history of mankind (2nd edn., London, 1826), 594, footnote. This quotation is ‘cued’ in the manuscript by the words ‘it is well known &c. p. 594’.Google Scholar
6Lyell, , Principles of geology, vol. ii (London, 1832), p. 204. The manuscript gives the ‘cue’ only as ‘P. of G. vol. 2, p. 204’, but this probably refers to the sentence I have quoted, because it draws a general conclusion from a detailed description of the human history of the Ganges delta as ‘an epitome of the globe as tenanted by man’. I have omitted a transcription of some notes which follow at this point in the manuscript, because Lyell evidently decided not to pursue this topic any further in his lecture.Google Scholar
7 [William Whewell], Review of Lyell's Principles of geology, vol. I, British critic, ix (1831), 180–206 (194). The quotation is only ‘cued’ in the manuscript as ‘Brit. Grit. p. 194’, but the sentence I have cited is, in the context, the one that Lyell is most likely to have read out. In its original form, it begins: ‘We conceive it undeniable (and Mr. Lyell would probably agree with us), that we see …’Google Scholar
8 Despite help from several friends and fellow Lyell scholars, I have been unable to locate this quotation. Its strongly ‘Baconian’ separation of geology from scripture is reminiscent of John Fleming's attitude, but I cannot find the sentiment so emphatically expressed anywhere in Fleming's published work. Perhaps it comes from one of his private letters to Lyell which I have not yet been able to see.Google Scholar
9 Lyell first wrote: ‘harmony of the whole system of the Author of Nature’; he then inserted the words ‘both moral & physical’ after ‘system’, and finally changed it to ‘system of the Universe’.Google Scholar
10 Charles James [Blomfield], Lord Bishop of London, The duty of combining religious instruction with intellectual culture. A sermon preached in the chapel of King's College London at the opening of the Institution on the 8th of October 1831 (London, 1831), pp. 9–10. The quotation is ‘cued’ in the manuscript as ‘Those harmonies (p. 9)’, and I have given the conclusion of the sermon from that point on.Google Scholar
11 Page 2 of this manuscript is missing, but it may have contained only a discarded draft of the text which continues on page 3.Google Scholar
12 Lyell evidently had on display a copy of Greenough, G. B.'s large Geological map of England (London, 1820), on which he pointed to the localities that he mentioned in the following passage.Google Scholar
13 In modern terms, part of the Wealden series of early Cretaceous age, now interpreted as a deltaic deposit of non-marine origin.Google Scholar
14 Evidently a demonstration specimen of the rippled sandstone was on display.Google Scholar
15 Perhaps Lyell had a second specimen on display, probably from the Great Oolite series (in modern terms, of Middle Jurassic age).Google Scholar
16 The manuscript here includes two very small sketches of asymmetrical ripple-marks in section, which Lyell presumably drew on some kind of blackboard.Google Scholar
17 Evidently pointing to the occasional branching of the ridges.Google Scholar
18 Probably Conybeare, William's great ‘Section across Europe from the North of Scotland to the Adriatic’, drawn to illustrate his ‘Report on the progress, actual state, and ulterior prospects of geological science’, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1st & 2nd meetings 1831–1831 (London, 1833), pp. 365–414. Lyell may have borrowed the large-scale version which Conybeare had presumably used for his lecture. The colouring of the small-scale, published version agrees with Lyell's remarks here.Google Scholar
19 Pointing again to the specimen from the Hastings sand.Google Scholar
20 What appears to be an earlier draft of this passage (Lyell MSS. 8, packet 14, p. 8) reads as follows:Google Scholar