76-559: Martin Lister FRS (12 April 1639 – 2 February 1712) was an English naturalist and physician. His daughters Anne and Susanna were two of his illustrators and engravers. Lister was born at Radcliffe , near Buckingham , the son of Sir Martin Lister MP for Brackley in the Long Parliament and his wife Susanna Temple , a daughter of Sir Alexander Temple . Lister was connected to
152-459: A Middle Jurassic fossil of the early mammal Didelphis , Lyell told his father that "There was everything but man even as far back as the Oolite." Lyell inaccurately portrayed Lamarckism as a response to the fossil record, and said it was falsified by a lack of progress. He said in the second volume of Principles that the occurrence of this one fossil of the higher mammalia "in these ancient strata,
228-571: A "remarkable manifestation of creative Power" as creating each species separately. He countered Lamarck's views by rejecting continued cooling of the earth in favour of "a fluctuating cycle", a long-term steady-state geohistory as proposed by James Hutton . The fragmentary fossil record already showed "a high class of fishes, close to reptiles" in the Carboniferous period which he called "the first Zoological era", and quadrupeds could also have existed then. In November 1827, after William Broderip found
304-408: A 'plastic virtue latent in the earth' the origin of fossil shells and fishes; and Lister, to his accurate account of British shells, in 1678, added the fossil species, under the appellation of turbinated and bivalve stones . 'Either,' said he, 'these were terriginous, or if otherwise, the animals they so exactly represent have become extinct . This writer appears to have been the first who was aware of
380-735: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote
456-506: A copy of Principles and praising the book as opening a way for bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others" – by analogy with other intermediate causes , "the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". Lyell replied: "In regard to the origination of new species, I am very glad to find that you think it probable that it may be carried on through
532-458: A number of well known individuals. He was the nephew of both James Temple , the regicide and also of Matthew Lister , physician to Anne , queen of James I , and to Charles I . He was also the uncle of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough who corresponded with him throughout her life. Lister was educated at Melton Mowbray , Leicestershire under Mr Barwick and matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1658. He graduated in 1658/9, and
608-590: A profession, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1820. He completed a circuit through rural England, where he could observe geological phenomena. In 1821 he attended Robert Jameson 's lectures in Edinburgh, and visited Gideon Mantell at Lewes , in Sussex . In 1823 he was elected joint secretary of the Geological Society . As his eyesight began to deteriorate, he turned to geology as a full-time profession. His first paper, "On
684-582: A profitable mining area, bears Lyell's name; and the Lyell Range in north-west Western Australia is named after him as well. In Southwest Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand, the Lyell Range, Lyell River and the gold mining town of Lyell (now only a camping site) were all named after Lyell. Lyall Bay in Wellington, New Zealand was possibly named after Lyell. The jawless fish Cephalaspis lyelli , from
760-513: A recent formation of freshwater limestone in Forfarshire", was presented in 1826. By 1827, he had abandoned law and embarked on a geological career that would result in fame and the general acceptance of uniformitarianism, a working out of the ideas proposed by James Hutton a few decades earlier. In 1832, Lyell married Mary Horner in Bonn, daughter of Leonard Horner (1785–1864), also associated with
836-468: A remarkable series of nearly three hundred manuscript notebooks and diaries. These span Lyell's long scientific career (1825–1874), and offer an unrivalled insight into personal influences, field observations, thoughts and relationships. They were acquired in 2019 by the University of Edinburgh 's Heritage Collections, thanks to a fundraising campaign, with many generous individual and institutional donors from
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#1733115908939912-756: Is as fatal to the theory of successive development, as if several hundreds had been discovered." In the first edition of Principles , the first volume briefly set out Lyell's concept of a steady state with no real progression of fossils. The sole exception was the advent of humanity, with no great physical distinction from animals, but with absolutely unique intellectual and moral qualities. The second volume dismissed Lamarck's claims of animal forms arising from habits, continuous spontaneous generation of new life, and man having evolved from lower forms. Lyell explicitly rejected Lamarck's concept of transmutation of species, drawing on Cuvier's arguments, and concluded that species had been created with stable attributes. He discussed
988-464: Is best known today for his association with Charles Darwin and as the author of Principles of Geology (1830–33), which presented to a wide public audience the idea that the earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities. The philosopher William Whewell dubbed this gradualistic view " uniformitarianism " and contrasted it with catastrophism , which had been championed by Georges Cuvier and
1064-493: Is best known, however, for his role in elaborating the doctrine of uniformitarianism . He played a critical role in advancing the study of loess . From 1830 to 1833 his multi-volume Principles of Geology was published. The work's subtitle was "An attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation", and this explains Lyell's impact on science. He drew his explanations from field studies conducted directly before he went to work on
1140-725: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and
1216-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which
1292-452: Is to happen thereafter." Geological remains from the distant past can, and should, be explained by reference to geological processes now in operation and thus directly observable. Lyell's interpretation of geological change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time was a powerful influence on the young Charles Darwin . Lyell asked Robert FitzRoy , captain of HMS Beagle , to search for erratic boulders on
1368-613: The Bodleian Library , Oxford and other repositories. They are to and from a variety of people including family, friends and other scientists. Abstracts of these letters have been published on line. The memorial inscription for Lister in Clapham church is now lost. It read: Near this place is buried the body of MARTIN LISTER, Doctor of Physick, a Member of the Royal Society, and one of Queen Ann's Physicians, who departed this life,
1444-627: The British Geological Survey (founded in 1835), and the US Geological Survey (founded in 1879), map and exhibit the natural resources within their countries. Over time, these surveys have been used extensively by modern extractive industries, such as nuclear, coal and oil. Before the work of Lyell, phenomena such as earthquakes were understood by the destruction that they brought. One of the contributions that Lyell made in Principles
1520-535: The Elements in 1838. The book went through six editions, eventually growing to two volumes and ceasing to be the inexpensive, portable handbook that Lyell had originally envisioned. Late in his career, therefore, Lyell produced a condensed version titled Student's Elements of Geology that fulfilled the original purpose. Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man brought together Lyell's views on three key themes from
1596-653: The Geological Society of London . The new couple spent their honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy on a geological tour of the area. During the 1840s, Lyell travelled to the United States and Canada, and wrote two popular travel-and-geology books: Travels in North America (1845) and A Second Visit to the United States (1849). In 1866, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . After
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#17331159089391672-681: The Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Lyell was one of the first to donate books to help found the Chicago Public Library . In 1841, Lyell was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society . Lyell's wife died in 1873, and two years later (in 1875) Lyell himself died as he was revising the twelfth edition of Principles . He is buried in Westminster Abbey where there is a bust to him by William Theed in
1748-673: The Highlands . His family's second country home was in a completely different geological and ecological area: he spent much of his childhood at Bartley Lodge in the New Forest , in Hampshire in southern England. Lyell entered Exeter College, Oxford , in 1816, and attended William Buckland 's geological lectures. He graduated with a BA Hons. second class degree in classics, in December 1819, and gained his M.A. 1821. After graduation he took up law as
1824-557: The Holocene by French paleontologist Paul Gervais in 1867 – included all deposits from the era subject to human observation. In recent years Lyell's subdivisions have been widely discussed in relation to debates about the Anthropocene . In Principles of Geology (first edition, vol. 3, ch. 2, 1833) Lyell proposed that icebergs could be the means of transport for erratics . During periods of global warming, ice breaks off
1900-522: The Old Red Sandstone of southern Scotland, was named by Louis Agassiz in honour of Lyell. Sir Charles Lyell was buried at Westminster Abbey on 27 February 1875. The pallbearers included T. H. Huxley , the Rev. W. S. Symonds and Mr John Carrick Moore . Lyell had private means, and earned further income as an author. He came from a prosperous family, worked briefly as a lawyer in the 1820s, and held
1976-582: The Royal Society (1684), an ingenious proposal for a new sort of maps of countries; together with tables of sands and clays, such as are chiefly found in the north parts of England. In this essay he suggested the preparation of a soil or mineral map of the country, and thereby is justly credited with being the first to realise the importance of a geological survey. Charles Lyell speaks of Lister in his Principles of Geology as follows: Dr. Plot , in his 'Natural History of Oxfordshire.' (1677) attributed to
2052-593: The histogram , provided Newton with alloys, and donated the first significant natural history collections to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Just as Lister was the first to make a systematic study of spiders and their webs, this biography is the first to analyze the significant webs of knowledge, patronage, and familial and gender relationships that governed his life as a scientist and physician. His principal works were Historiae animalium Angliae tres tractatus (1678) which
2128-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to
2204-689: The survey voyage of the Beagle , and just before it set out FitzRoy gave Darwin Volume 1 of the first edition of Lyell's Principles . When the Beagle made its first stop ashore at St Jago in the Cape Verde islands, Darwin found rock formations which seen "through Lyell's eyes" gave him a revolutionary insight into the geological history of the island, an insight he applied throughout his travels. While in South America Darwin received Volume 2 which considered
2280-399: The 'Recent', is widely cited as providing the foundations for the modern discussion of the Anthropocene . Building on the innovative work of James Hutton and his follower John Playfair , Lyell favoured an indefinitely long age for the earth, despite evidence suggesting an old but finite age. He was a close friend of Charles Darwin , and contributed significantly to Darwin's thinking on
2356-626: The 16th to 18th centuries, their topics ranging through medicine, anatomy, natural philosophy, and botany, as well as into voyages and travel. Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of
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2432-729: The Ashmolean several volumes of Lister's letters and around 40 of his notebooks, which he had bought at auction. In 1858 the Trustees of the Museum offered a transfer of their written artefacts to the Bodleian, and in 1860 more than 3700 volumes were received by the Library. Lister's books and manuscripts form almost a third of this initial collection, making him its second-most represented donor next to Elias Ashmole. His series consists of c. 1260 volumes dating from
2508-499: The Origin of Species , Lyell finally offered a tepid endorsement of evolution in the tenth edition of Principles . Elements of Geology began as the fourth volume of the third edition of Principles : Lyell intended the book to act as a suitable field guide for students of geology. The systematic, factual description of geological formations of different ages contained in Principles grew so unwieldy, however, that Lyell split it off as
2584-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of
2660-1395: The Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of
2736-655: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to
2812-569: The UK and overseas. Highlights include his travels throughout Europe and the United States of America, the drafts of his correspondence with the likes of Charles Darwin, his geological and landscape sketches and his constant gathering of evidence and refinement of his theories. Principles of Geology , Lyell's first book, was also his most famous, most influential, and most important. First published in three volumes in 1830–33, it established Lyell's credentials as an important geological theorist and propounded
2888-556: The West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended the Earl of Portland when he was ambassador to France in 1698. He was physician to Queen Anne from 1709 until his death. He died at Epsom at the age of 72 and was buried at Clapham Church. He bequeathed his books and copper-plates to the University of Oxford. Lister was a prolific correspondent. More than 2,000 letters written by and to him survive in
2964-524: The ancient spirit of speculation revived, and a desire manifestly shown to cut, rather than patiently untie, the Gordian Knot. -Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology , 1854 edition, p. 196; quoted by Stephen Jay Gould . Lyell saw himself as "the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses." The two terms, uniformitarianism and catastrophism , were both coined by William Whewell ; in 1866 R. Grove suggested
3040-470: The award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given. Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet , FRS (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He
3116-597: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use
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3192-679: The continuity over large districts of the principal groups of strata in the British series, and who proposed the construction of regular geological maps. He was a benefactor of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The ridge Dorsa Lister in the Sea of Serenity on the Moon was named after him. Before he died in 1712, Lister donated over a thousand books and manuscripts to the Ashmolean Museum, most of which were medical and scientific works. In 1769 John Fothergill gifted
3268-586: The doctrine of uniformitarianism . It was a work of synthesis, backed by his own personal observations on his travels. The central argument in Principles was that the present is the key to the past – a concept of the Scottish Enlightenment which David Hume had stated as "all inferences from experience suppose ... that the future will resemble the past", and James Hutton had described when he wrote in 1788 that "from what has actually been, we have data for concluding with regard to that which
3344-515: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use
3420-422: The formation of atolls , which supported Lyell's uniformitarianism. On the return of the Beagle (October 1836) Lyell invited Darwin to dinner and from then on they were close friends. Although Darwin discussed evolutionary ideas with him from 1842, Lyell continued to reject evolution in each of the first nine editions of the Principles . He encouraged Darwin to publish, and following the 1859 publication of On
3496-583: The fossil record indicated a directional geohistory in which species went extinct. Around 1826, when he was on circuit, he read Lamarck 's Zoological Philosophy and on 2 March 1827 wrote to Mantell , expressing admiration, but cautioning that he read it "rather as I hear an advocate on the wrong side, to know what can be made of the case in good hands".: He struggled with the implications for human dignity, and later in 1827 wrote private notes on Lamarck's ideas. Lyell reconciled transmutation of species with natural theology by suggesting that it would be as much
3572-598: The founding geology text. He was, along with the earlier John Playfair , the major advocate of James Hutton 's idea of uniformitarianism , that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces still in operation today, acting over a very long period of time. This was in contrast to catastrophism , an idea of abrupt geological changes, which had been adapted in England to explain landscape features—such as rivers much smaller than their associated valleys—that seemed impossible to explain other than through violent action. Criticizing
3648-588: The geographical distribution of plants and animals, and proposed that every species of plant or animal was descended from a pair or individual, originated in response to differing external conditions. Species would regularly go extinct, in a "struggle for existence" between hybrids, or a "war one with another" due to population pressure. He was vague about how replacement species formed, portraying this as an infrequent occurrence which could rarely be observed. The leading man of science Sir John Herschel wrote from Cape Town on 20 February 1836, thanking Lyell for sending
3724-785: The geology of the Quaternary Period of earth history: glaciers, evolution, and the age of the human race . First published in 1863, it went through three editions that year, with a fourth and final edition appearing in 1873. The book was widely regarded as a disappointment because of Lyell's equivocal treatment of evolution . Lyell, a highly religious man with a strong belief in the special status of human reason, had great difficulty reconciling his beliefs with natural selection . Lyell's geological interests ranged from volcanoes and geological dynamics through stratigraphy , palaeontology , and glaciology to topics that would now be classified as prehistoric archaeology and paleoanthropology . He
3800-530: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from
3876-430: The ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in some detail. Lyell rejected Lamarck's idea of organic evolution , proposing instead "Centres of Creation" to explain diversity and territory of species. However, as discussed below , many of his letters show he was fairly open to the idea of evolution. In geology Darwin was very much Lyell's disciple, and brought back observations and his own original theorising, including ideas about
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#17331159089393952-449: The intervention of intermediate causes. I left this rather to be inferred, not thinking it worth while to offend a certain class of persons by embodying in words what would only be a speculation." Whewell subsequently questioned this topic, and in March 1837 Lyell told him: As a result of his letters and, no doubt, personal conversations, Huxley and Ernst Haeckel were convinced that, at
4028-701: The north aisle. Lyell was knighted ( Kt ) in 1848, and later, in 1864, made a baronet ( Bt ), which is an hereditary honour. He was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1858 and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in 1866. Mount Lyell , the highest peak in Yosemite National Park , is named after him; the crater Lyell on the Moon and a crater on Mars were named in his honour; Mount Lyell in western Tasmania, Australia, located in
4104-617: The number and proportion of marine shells encased within. Based on this the third volume of his Principles of Geology , published in 1833, proposed dividing the Tertiary period into four parts, which he named the Eocene , Miocene , Pliocene , and Recent. In 1839, Lyell termed the Pleistocene epoch, distinguishing a more recent fossil layer from the Pliocene. The Recent epoch – renamed
4180-408: The poles and floats across submerged continents, carrying debris with it, he conjectured. When the iceberg melts, it rains down sediments upon the land. Because this theory could account for the presence of diluvium, the word drift became the preferred term for the loose, unsorted material, today called till . Furthermore, Lyell believed that the accumulation of fine angular particles covering much of
4256-509: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II
4332-552: The post of Professor of Geology at King's College London in the 1830s. From 1830 onward his books provided both income and fame. Each of his three major books was a work continually in progress. All three went through multiple editions during his lifetime, although many of his friends (such as Darwin) thought the first edition of the Principles was the best written. Lyell used each edition to incorporate additional material, rearrange existing material, and revisit old conclusions in light of new evidence. Throughout his life, Lyell kept
4408-644: The processes involved in evolution. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species , "He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume." Lyell helped to arrange the simultaneous publication in 1858 of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection , despite his personal religious qualms about
4484-546: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates
4560-453: The reliance of his contemporaries on what he argued were ad hoc explanations, Lyell wrote, Never was there a doctrine more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change... The student was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never arise to the rank of an exact science... [With catastrophism] we see
4636-489: The second day of February 1711–12. Lister contributed numerous articles on natural history, medicine and antiquities to the Philosophical Transactions . He was the first arachnologist and conchologist, and provided an unprecedented picture of a seventeenth-century virtuoso. Lister is recognized for his discovery of ballooning spiders and as the father of conchology , but it is less well known that he invented
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#17331159089394712-443: The simpler term continuity for Lyell's view, but the old terms persisted. In various revised editions (12 in all, through 1872), Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century, and did much to put geology on a modern footing. Lyell noted the "economic advantages" that geological surveys could provide, citing their felicity in mineral-rich countries and provinces. Modern surveys, like
4788-643: The study of nature. Lyell's grandfather, also Charles Lyell, had made the family fortune supplying the Royal Navy at Montrose , enabling him to buy Kinnordy House. The family seat is located in Strathmore , near the Highland Boundary Fault . Round the house, in the strath , is good farmland, but within a short distance to the north-west, on the other side of the fault, are the Grampian Mountains in
4864-419: The theory of gradual "backed up-building" of volcanoes . In stratigraphy his division of the Tertiary period into the Pliocene , Miocene , and Eocene was highly influential. He incorrectly conjectured that icebergs were the impetus behind the transport of glacial erratics , and that silty loess deposits might have settled out of flood waters. His creation of a separate period for human history, entitled
4940-547: The theory of natural selection by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858: each had arrived at the theory independently. Lyell's views on gradual change and the power of a long time scale were important because Darwin thought that populations of an organism changed very slowly. Although Lyell rejected evolution at the time of writing the Principles , after the Darwin–Wallace papers and the Origin Lyell wrote in one of his notebooks on 3 May 1860: Lyell's acceptance of natural selection, Darwin's proposed mechanism for evolution,
5016-433: The theory. He later published evidence from geology of the time man had existed on the earth. Lyell was born into a wealthy family, on 14 November 1797, at the family's estate house , Kinnordy House , near Kirriemuir in Forfarshire. He was the eldest of ten children. Lyell's father, also named Charles Lyell , was noted as a translator and scholar of Dante . An accomplished botanist, it was he who first exposed his son to
5092-474: The time he wrote Principles , he believed new species had arisen by natural methods. Adam Sedgwick wrote worried letters to him about this. By the time Darwin returned from the Beagle survey expedition in 1836, he had begun to doubt Lyell's ideas about the permanence of species. He continued to be a close personal friend, and Lyell was one of the first scientists to support On the Origin of Species , though he did not subscribe to all its contents. Lyell
5168-446: The upheaval argument supported by other geologists. Lyell was a key figure in establishing the classification of more recent geological deposits, long known as the Tertiary period. From May 1828, until February 1829, he travelled with Roderick Impey Murchison (1792–1871) to the south of France (Auvergne volcanic district) and to Italy. In these areas he concluded that the recent strata (rock layers) could be categorised according to
5244-401: The world (today called loess ) was a deposit settled from mountain flood water. Today some of Lyell's mechanisms for geological processes have been disproven, though many have stood the test of time. His observational methods and general analytical framework remain in use today as foundational principles in geology. Lyell initially accepted the conventional view of other men of science, that
5320-399: Was also a friend of Darwin's closest colleagues, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Huxley , but unlike them he struggled to square his religious beliefs with evolution. This inner struggle has been much commented on. He had particular difficulty in believing in natural selection as the main motive force in evolution. Lyell and Hooker were instrumental in arranging the peaceful co-publication of
5396-498: Was better accepted in Europe. The combination of evidence and eloquence in Principles convinced a wide range of readers of the significance of " deep time " for understanding the earth and environment. Lyell's scientific contributions included a pioneering explanation of climate change, in which shifting boundaries between oceans and continents could be used to explain long-term variations in temperature and rainfall. Lyell also gave influential explanations of earthquakes and developed
5472-525: Was elected a fellow in 1660. In 1668 he travelled to France to study as a physician and settled at York in 1670 to practice medicine. He became Fellow of the Royal Society on 2 November 1671. He practised medicine at York until 1683, when he moved to London. In 1684 he received the degree of M.D. at Oxford on the recommendation of the Chancellor. In 1687 became F.R.C.P. Lister bought Carlton Hall in Craven in
5548-571: Was equivocal, and came in the tenth edition of Principles . The Antiquity of Man (published in early February 1863, just before Huxley's Man's place in nature ) drew these comments from Darwin to Huxley: "I am fearfully disappointed at Lyell's excessive caution" and "The book is a mere 'digest'". Quite strong remarks: no doubt Darwin resented Lyell's repeated suggestion that he owed a lot to Lamarck , whom he (Darwin) had always specifically rejected. Darwin's daughter Henrietta (Etty) wrote to her father: "Is it fair that Lyell always calls your theory
5624-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership
5700-507: Was the first organised, systematic publication on shells; Historiae Conchyliorum (1685 1692), and Conchyliorum Bivalvium (1696). As a conchologist he was held in high esteem, but while he recognised the similarity of fossil mollusca to living forms, he regarded them as inorganic imitations produced in the rocks. Lister employed his daughters from an early age. His daughters, Anne Lister , and Susanna Lister were both credited as his illustrators and engravers. In 1683 he communicated to
5776-421: Was to explain the cause of earthquakes. Lyell, in contrast focused on recent earthquakes (150 yrs), evidenced by surface irregularities such as faults, fissures, stratigraphic displacements and depressions. Lyell's work on volcanoes focused largely on Vesuvius and Etna , both of which he had earlier studied. His conclusions supported gradual building of volcanoes, so-called "backed up-building", as opposed to
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