Scientist of the Day - Charles Lyell

“Bird’s-eye view of the Falls of Niagara”, frontispiece, hand-colored lithograph in Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 1, plate 1, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

Charles Lyell, a Scottish geologist, was born Nov 14, 1797.  His family was wealthy and owned an estate called Kinnordy House in Kirriemuir in southeast Scotland that would eventually pass to Charles.  Lyell attended Exeter College, Oxford, to study law, but happened to encounter the classes of William Buckland, England's first lecturer in geology, and although Lyell practiced law in England for some years, he soon made geology his profession.  His Principles of Geology, published when he was just 33 years old, became a revolutionary work when completed in three volumes in 1833, building on the work of James Hutton and arguing that the earth’s surface changes slowly, in response to the forces of erosion and plutonic uplift.  He rejected the catastrophic views then common in geology, that changes in the Earth's surface structure require cataclysmic forces such as floods.  Georges Cuvier was a catastrophist, as was Buckland.  Lyell’s Principles had a profound influence on Charles Darwin, then on his Beagle voyage.  We wrote a post on Lyell's uniformitarianism, as his geological viewpoint was called, when this series was just taking wing, back in November of 2014.  It is brief, as were most of the early posts, but basically sound.  The portrait I used, however, which showed Lyell in his sixties, was an unfortunate choice; I should have used a portrait of the young man who wrote the Principles, such as the one used in the Wikipedia article, or the one I use today (second image), which I will explain in due course,

Portrait of Charles Lyell, lithograph by Albert Newsam after a daguerreotype by J.E. Mayall, Philadelphia, 1846, offered by Barry Lawrence Ruderman, Antique Maps Inc. (rarebooks.com)

Lyell's Principles went through many revisions and editions, and Lyell soon became a prominent figure in the field, although he had many rivals, such as Roderick Murchison.  In 1840, Lyell was invited to give the Lowell Lectures in Boston, a new lecture series, for which Lyell would be the second speaker.  He decided to combine a speaking tour with a geological tour of the eastern United States, which might provide fodder for a new book and numerous articles.  The lectures were a great success, averaging an audience of 3000 souls each for 12 lectures in the fall of 1841.  Lyell earned a staggering $2000 honorarium (staggering because it is equivalent to $75,000 today), which paid for his year-long tour for Lyell and his wife through New England, the Atlantic Seaboard, New York State, and the Ohio River valley.  He repeated his lectures in Philadelphia and New York City.

Title page, Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 1, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

Lyell returned for a second tour in 1845, and then published a two-volume narrative, Travels in North America (1845), which we have in our collections, and which provided the images for today's post (third image).  The two most dramatic illustrations are the two folding frontispieces.  The one for volume 1 is a hand-colored lithograph that provides a geological map/birds-eye view of Niagara Falls and its surroundings (first image).  Lyell was quite taken with the Falls (as is any tourist) and had thoughts about how fast the Falls are eroding the rock beneath.  He even found a French drawing from 1697, by a certain Father Hennepin, that provided evidence as to where the Falls were 150 years earlier (a mere moment of geological time), and he included a facsimile of the drawing in volume 1 (fourth image).

Facsimile of a view of Niagara Falls, by Father Hennepin, 1697, lithograph in Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 1, plate 4, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

Volume 2 contains the piece de resistance, a geological map of the United States, this one a hand-colored engraving (fifth image; see also a detail, sixth image).  Since Lyell was not there long enough to map the U.S., nor did he see much of what was on the map, he had to borrow most of his information from the various state geological surveys that had recently begun to map each state on their own, such as the Survey of New York State, led by James Hall, Jr., whom Lyell met and toured with.  The state geologists who shared their work with Lyell were not too thrilled that Lyell was going to publish their work before they could.  Hall was especially upset and wrote a “letter to the editor” denouncing Lyell's "theft", an action that he later regretted.

Coal seam in Brownsville, Penn., wood engraving in Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 2, plate 6, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

Geological map of the United States, hand-colored engraved frontispiece in Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 2, plate 2, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

There are not that many plates in Lyell's book – only 8 in the two volumes, including the frontispieces – so it is not an illustrated tour of the United States that he provides, but I thought I would show one other image, this one a full-page wood engraving, that depicts a coal seam breaking through the surface in Brownsville, Pennsylvania (seventh image).

Detail of geological map of the United States, hand-colored engraved frontispiece in Travels in North America, by Charles Lyell, vol. 2, plate 2, London, 1845 (Linda Hall Library)

Lyell would make four tours in all of the eastern United States, and publish a follow-up two-volume set in 1849: A Second Visit to the United States of North America, which we also have in our collections.  We own, as well, all 12 editions of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, making us a good place for Lyell studies in the United States.

Memorial plaque for Charles Lyell, Westminster Abbey, north aisle, London (westminster-abbey.org)

Lyell died on Feb. 22, 1875, while preparing the latest edition of his Principles.  He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where there is a memorial stone in the north aisle (eighth image)

The portrait I use (second image) is especially appropriate for this post, as it was made from a daguerreotype taken in the United States on Lyell’s first tour and printed as a lithograph in Philadelphia in 1846. I know of only one print of this portrait, being offered by a dealer in Philadelphia.  It would be a very nice acquisition for someone, including us.

William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.