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While the astronomers went in for the evolution of suns, stars, and worlds, Lyell and his geological brethren went in for the evolution of the earth's surface. As theirs was stellar, so his was mundane.
Darwin than reached the public, and that the historical sketch prefixed to all editions after the first six thousand copies had been sold meagre and slovenly as it is was due to earlier manifestation on the part of some of Mr. Darwin's friends of the feeling that was afterwards expressed by Sir Charles Lyell in the passage quoted above.
What cares any man profoundly conscious of the wants both of the intellect and the heart whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or not, and if so, whether he was as accomplished a geologist as Professors Buckland and Lyell?
I may observe, that in the case of the frozen snow, the columnar structure must be owing to a "metamorphic" action, and not to a process during deposition. This is merely an illustration of the admirable laws, first laid down by Mr. Lyell, on the geographical distribution of animals, as influenced by geological changes.
In some coal-districts fossil fruits, named cardiocarpum and trigonocarpum, have been found in great quantities, and these have now been decided by botanists to be the fruits of certain conifers, allied, not to those which bear hard cones, but to those which bear solitary fleshy fruits. Sir Charles Lyell referred them to a Chinese genus of the yew tribe called salisburia.
You admit that variations in fertility and sterility occur, and I think you will also admit that if I demonstrate that a considerable amount of sterility would be advantageous to a variety, that is sufficient proof that the slightest variation in that direction would be useful also, and would go on accumulating. Sir C. Lyell spoke to me as if he greatly admired pangenesis.
Locusts are sometimes blown to great distances from the land. I myself caught one 370 miles from the coast of Africa, and have heard of others caught at greater distances. The Rev. R.T. Lowe informed Sir C. Lyell that in November, 1844, swarms of locusts visited the island of Madeira.
But under the influence of the writings of Lyell, just before the middle of the century, it began to appear that the key to this language is to be found by simply opening the eyes and observing what is going on around us to-day.
You will get nothing like the same remuneration anywhere else. . . Lyell and Mr. Lowell soon arranged all preliminaries, and it was understood that Agassiz should begin his tour in the United States by a course of lectures in Boston before the Lowell Institute. A month or two before sailing he writes as follows to Mr. Lowell. PARIS, July 6, 1846.
Would Lyell have been able to describe the development of the crust of the earth if, instead of examining strata and their contents, he had scrutinised the chemical qualities of innumerable rocks? Let us really follow in the footsteps of these investigators who tower like giants in the domain of modern science.
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