tinent, continuing those studies in comparative geology which gave such width to the theories deduced and propagated by Lyell. Yet in all such work his defective sight was necessarily against him, and at times even a source of danger (J. W. Dawson, Canadian Naturalist, new ser. vol. viii.) The changes of level in the Baltic in recent times attracted his attention in 1834, and he communicated his results to the Royal Society (Phil. Trans. 1835, p. 1). The council of this body awarded him one of the royal medals in the same year, in recognition of the publication of the ‘Principles,’ prudently ‘at the same time declining to express any opinion on the controverted positions contained in that work’ (Proc. Roy. Soc. iii. 306).
In 1835, at the age of thirty-eight, he was elected president of the Geological Society, and was re-elected, according to the custom of that body, for a second term in 1836. He was now examining the crag beds of eastern England, and it is noteworthy how his particular bent of mind led him to work mainly among the newest deposits, while his friends Murchison and Sedgwick were turning to the much neglected palæozoic group. At this time, devoting himself entirely to geology, he was living at 16 Hart Street, London, and enjoying the society and friendship of Dean Milman, Hallam, Rogers, and other literary men, in addition to his scientific circle. Charles Darwin spoke later affectionately of this house as his ‘morning house of call.’
In 1838 Lyell published a volume entitled ‘Elements of Geology,’ of which a sixth edition appeared in 1865. The third, fourth, and fifth editions bore the title of ‘A Manual of Elementary Geology.’ This work was supplementary to the ‘Principles,’ and more in the manner of a descriptive text-book. In 1841 he visited the United States, and delivered a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, before an audience averaging three thousand. From this time forward his opinions on social questions are freely and clearly expressed in a series of letters written to George Ticknor the historian.
After publishing ‘Travels in North America, with Geological Observations,’ in 2 vols. in 1845, Lyell again visited the States, remaining there until the autumn of 1846. His observations on slave-life in the south had led him to style Mrs. Beecher-Stowe's ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’ ‘a gross caricature;’ but we find him in full sympathy with the northern states during the war of 1861–5.
In 1848 he was knighted by the queen, at the suggestion of Lord Lansdowne, an honour exchanged for a baronetcy in 1864. Between these dates his relations with the prince consort both in Scotland and in London formed a pleasant feature in his life, devoted as the two men were to the progress of liberal education. In 1849 and 1850 Lyell was again president of the Geological Society. He had now moved to Harley Street, where he resided for the remainder of his life.
He published two further volumes in 1849, entitled ‘A Second Visit to the United States of North America,’ and spent the greater part of 1852 in that country, again lecturing at Boston. He returned thither for the fourth and last time in 1853 as commissioner to the New York International Exhibition.
Still bent on extending his personal experiences, he spent the winter of 1853–4 in the Canary Islands, and a paper on Madeira, extracted from his letters to Mr. Horner, was contributed to the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ x. 325. In 1854 he was awarded the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford.
Continuing to insist upon the poverty of our knowledge concerning the life of older periods, Lyell hailed the discovery of mammalian remains in jurassic and triassic strata as a blow to the acceptance of merely negative evidence (Life, ii. 239). But the influence of Darwin was already making its impression in the circle of his personal friends, and the story of Lyell's action in arranging for the publication of the views of Darwin and Wallace upon the origin of species is highly characteristic of his open-hearted fairness [see Darwin, Charles Robert]. As Sir J. W. Dawson has remarked (Canad. Naturalist, new ser. vol. viii), Lyell ‘seemed wholly free from that common failing of men of science which causes them to cling with such tenacity to opinions once formed, even in the face of the strongest evidence.’ The position of the ‘Principles of Geology,’ as preparing the way for Darwin's ‘Origin of Species,’ has been admirably discussed by Professor Huxley (Life and Letters of C. Darwin, ii. 190–3). When Darwin's book appeared in 1859, Lyell was found among the warmest supporters of the views which it expressed as to the reality of the transmutation of species, and Darwin justly wrote of his friend's action, ‘Considering his age, his former views, and position in society, I think his conduct has been heroic on this subject’ (ib. ii. 326).
Lyell's geological work in 1858 included new ascents of Etna, his descriptions of which are as fresh and energetic as those of thirty years before. Almost his last original communication, ‘On the Structure of Lavas which have consolidated on steep Slopes,’
