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There was a time when catastrophism might, pre-eminently, have claimed the title of "British popular geology;" and assuredly it has yet many adherents, and reckons among its supporters some of the most honoured members of this Society. By UNIFORMITARIANISM, I mean especially, the teaching of Hutton and of Lyell.
Hence to explain their appearance, it was thought that they were water-plants, ramifying the mud in every direction, and finally becoming overwhelmed and covered by the mud itself. On botanical grounds, Brongniart and Lyell conjectured that they formed the roots of other trees, and this became the more apparent as it came to be acknowledged that the underclays were really ancient soils.
He was told that snow thus treated would melt a fortnight or three weeks before the ordinary time for its disappearance in the valley; but it will be seen that this does not contradict the theory of the Sicilian peasants. Sir Charles Lyell adds that, after what he saw on Mount Etna, he should not be surprised to find layers of glacier and lava alternating in some parts of Iceland.
From the numerous observations which have been made regarding the nature of these phenomena by Hopkins, Lyell, and others, it seems clearly established that earthquakes have their origin in some sudden impact of gas, steam, or molten matter impelled by gas or steam under high pressure, beneath the solid crust.
These islands are described by Hoffmann, Poggendorf Annal., vol. xxvi. ; also by Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. ii., and by Judd, who personally visited them, and gives a very vivid account of their appearance and structure. Strabo, lib. vi. Judd, Volcanoes, p. 8. Stromboli has also been described by Spallanzani, Hoffmann, Daubeny, and others. The account of Judd is the most recent.
He wrote to Lyell, "You have pleased me much by saying that you intend looking through my 'Volcanic Islands; it cost me eighteen months!!! and I have heard of very few who have read it. To Sir Joseph Hooker he wrote, "I have just finished a little volume on the volcanic islands which we visited. I do not know how far you care for dry simple geology, but I hope you will let me send you a copy."
The district was afterwards described by Daubeny, Lyell, Von Buch, and others; but by far the most complete work is that of Scrope, entitled Volcanoes of Central France, containing maps and numerous illustrations, published in 1826, and republished in a more extended form in 1858; to this I am largely indebted.
We see this in the plainest manner by the fact that all the most eminent palæontologists, namely Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species.
In the long list of his intimate friends Macaulay, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis were conspicuous. Like most men of this type, he found the multiplying gaps around him the chief trial of old age. Not long before he died there was an exhibition of contemporary portraits, but though Milman went to it he could not go through it.
Sir C. Lyell, while agreeing with my main argument on Man, thinks I am wrong in wanting to put him back into Miocene times, and thinks I do not appreciate the immense interval even to the later Pliocene.
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