LYELL, Sir CHARLES, an eminent geologist of the 19th c., was the eldest son of Charles Lye11, esq., of Kinnordy, Forfarshire. He was born in 1797, and after receiving his early education at 3lidhurst, in Sussex, was entered at Exeter college, Oxford, where he graduated as B.A. in 1819. , Here be attended the lectures of Buckland, and thus acquired a taste for the science lie afterwards did so much to promote. After leaving the university he studied law, and in due time was called to the bar; but his circum stances not rendering a profession necessary for a livelihood, Ile soon abandoned the law and devoted himself to the prosecution of geology. To extend his knowledge in this .department of science he made geological tours in 1824, and again in 1828-30, over vari ous parts of Europe, and published the results of his investigations in the Transactions of the Geological Society and elsewhere. The first volume of his great work, The Princi ples of Geology, appeared in 1830, the second in 1832, and the third in 1833. A third edi tion of the whole work appeared iu 1834, a fifth in 1837, and the tenth was published in 1868. This work was divided into two parts, which have been subsequently pub lished as two distinct works—viz., The Principles of Geology; or the Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants, as illustrative of Geology, which has now reached its ninth edition; and The Elements of Gology; or the Ancient Changes of the Earth, and its inhab itants, as illustrated by its Geological Monuments, of which the sixth edition was published in 1865. The Geological Evidences of the Antiguky of Man, with .Remarks on Theories of
the Origin of Species by Variation, took a large proportion of the public very much by surprise in 1863--creating as it did the sensation of the season in the literature of science. The fourth edition of this remarkable work, enlarged and greatly improved, appeared in 1873. Lyell also published A First and Second Visit to North America, Canada, Nova Scotia, etc., with Geological Observations, in 4 vols., besides a number of important geo logical papers in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Geological Society, the _Reports of the British Association, etc. Lyell was one of the early members of the geological society, and on the opening of King's college in 1832 he was appointed professor of geology, an office which he soon resigned. In 1836 and again in 1850 he.was elected president of the geological society, and in 1864 president of the British association. He was knighted in 1848, and created a baronet in 18434. Lyell received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, and that of LL.D. from Cambridge. He died in 1875.