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Often appears with: the earth and its formation · fossils and the record of past life · matter, motion, and cause · strata, rocks, and the geological record · experiment, observation, and evidence · fate, destiny, and necessity · reason and the intellect · weather, storms, and the seasons · species, variation, and descent · geography and the description of places · history and the writing of history · volcanoes, earthquakes, and catastrophe
Usually: argument (71) · skepticism (38) · curiosity (34) · detachment (19) · reflection (13) · description (6) · wonder (5) · censure (3) · commentary or gloss (2) · narrative (2)
“The word, which I interpret the flying or floating island, is in the original Laputa, whereof I could never learn the true etymology.” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of th · observation
“Lyell was no cabinet geologist; he went to nature and studied phenomena at first hand.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · observation
“THE PRESENT IS THE KEY TO THE PAST. That is to say, the processes which have gone on in the past were the same in general character as those now seen in operation, though probably differing in degree.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“I proposed to give short technical names to these sets of strata, or the periods to which they respectively belonged.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · precept
“In the Recent we may comprehend those deposits in which not only all the shells but all the fossil mammalia are of living species; in the Pleistocene those strata in which, the shells being Recent, a portion, and often a considerable one, of the accompanying fossil quadrupeds belongs to extinct species.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“It is now admitted that the differences between the brain of the highest races of Man and that of the lowest,* though less in degree, are of the same order as those which separate the human from the simian brain; and the same rule holds good in regard to the shape of the skull.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · observation
“that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“The refrigeration of climate from the time of the older to that of the newer Pliocene strata is not now announced for the first time, as it was inferred from a study of the Crag shells in 1846 by the late Edward Forbes.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“It is therefore probable that they often cause great alterations in the arrangement of pliant and incoherent strata forming the upper part of shoals or submerged banks, the inferior portions of the same remaining unmoved.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“This theory I adopted in 1841 ("Elements," 2nd edition), as appearing to me less objectionable than any other then proposed.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“The height at which the waters remain stationary is determined solely by the elevation of the col, and not by the barrier of ice, provided the barrier is higher than the col.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · insight
“In passing from the period of chief submergence to this second continental condition of things, we may conceive a gradual change first from that of Map 39 to Map 40, then from the latter phase to that of Map 41, and finally to still greater accessions of land.” Charles Lyell, Sir, The Antiquity of Man · observation
The narrator resumes the voyage near Greenland and Davis Strait, praising knowledge-seeking exploration, citing Sabine, Franklin/Beechey, and explaining tectonic uplift and sinking between Norway and Greenland.
we might find it as easy to reach Behring Straits by travelling in a straight line over the North Pole, as by threading the straits and bays north of America. We turn our course until we have in sight a portion of the ice-barred eastern coast of Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about this spot in the seventy-fifth parallel is the most northern part of that coast known to us. Colonel--then Captain--Sabine in th…
The narrator cites Lecomte about an observatory on Peking’s tower terrace, where Chinese instruments were supposedly removed for Jesuit-made instruments, with descriptions of a bronze armillary zodiacal sphere on four dragons and related instruments.
The only authority that I could lay hand on was Lecomte, and what he says was not conclusive. I extract the most pertinent passages: “It was on the terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor …
Wylie argues the so-called Mongol instruments were not made by the Jesuits and claims a decisive feature is non-sexagesimal division, while also attributing the instruments to earlier Mongol-era astronomers like Ko Show-king and stressing continuous Chinese instrument-making.
and I applied to Mr. Wylie for information, as I had received the photographs from him, and knew that he had been Mr. Thomson’s companion and helper in the matter. “Let me assure you,” he writes (21st August, 1874), “the Jesuits had nothing to do with the manufacture of the so-called Mongol instruments; and whoever made them, they were certainly on the Peking Observatory before Loyola was born. They are not ma…
A quoted account by Trigault/translated from 1618 describes a college of Chinese mathematicians preparing almanacs at Nanking, and presents Ricci’s praise of advanced cast-metal astronomical instruments on a hill-top terrace, including globes, spheres, gnomons, and large astrolabes.
French _Hist. de l’Expédition Chrestienne en la Chine_, 1618. But as I have the Latin, which is the original and is more lucid, by me, I will translate from that.[7] “Not only at Peking, but in this capital also (Nanking) there is a College of Chinese Mathematicians, and this one certainly is more distinguished by the vastness of its buildings than by the skill of its professors. They have little talent and le…
The passage details Ricci’s inspection of four large cast-metal astronomical instruments in Nanking, explains their graduated rings, tube for observing stars, a water-level gnomon, and a multi-astrolabe device with tactile night graduations and an assumed pole elevation error.
be accused of raising expectations which I do not justify, I will do my best in a digression, probably not unwelcome, to bring them before the eyes of my readers. “The larger of these instruments were four in number. First we inspected a great globe [A], graduated with meridians and parallels; we estimated that three men would hardly be able to embrace its girth.... A second instrument was a great sphere [B], …
The narrator connects Ricci’s described Nanking instruments and Peking’s observatory, then quotes a popular description saying Peking’s observatory was built in 1279, lists Ko Show-king’s Mongol instruments, later replacements in 1673, and adds a wind-index-pole with 28 constellation points.
we may without rashness conjecture that they were the work of some foreigner acquainted with our studies. But it is time to have done with these instruments.”—(*Lib.* IV. *cap.* 5.) In this interesting description it will be seen that the Armillary Sphere [B] agrees entirely with that represented in illustration facing p. 450. And the second of his photographs in my possession, but not, I believe, yet publishe…
The author argues that objections about the Mongol astronomical instruments at Peking are unfounded, noting agreement among instrument catalogues and that most remain on the terrace, though not equally accurate scientifically.
does there seem any ground for questioning this. In fact, it being once established that the instruments existed when the Jesuits entered China, all the objections fall to the ground. We may observe that the *number* of the ancient instruments mentioned in the popular Chinese account agrees with the number of important instruments described by Ricci, and the titles of three at least out of the four seem to ind…
It recounts successive calendar systems under Kubilai Khan, including a Mongol-linked Chinese observatory arrangement, the adoption of a Mohammedan astronomical calendar in 1267, and later errors in the Shou-shi-li system.
over the whole world. Ye-liu Ch’u-ts’ai’s calendar was not adopted in China, but the system of it is explained in the *Yuen-shi*, in the section on Astronomy and the Calendar. “In the year 1267, the Mohammedans presented to Kubilai their astronomical calendar (*wan nien li*, *i.e.*), the calendar of ten thousand years. By taking this denomination in its literal sense, we may conclude that the Mahommedans broug…
Lyell analyzes a Pythagorean-style doctrine that nothing truly perishes but things change form, then lists many geological transformations—land to sea, shells in mountains, buried cities, uplift, spring changes, and volcanic shifts.
Let us now examine the celebrated passages to which we have been adverting:[13] "Nothing perishes in this world; but things merely vary and change their form. To be born, means simply that a thing begins to be something different from what it was before; and dying, is ceasing to be the same thing. Yet, although nothing retains long the same image, the sum of the whole remains constant." These general propositions ar…
Lyell debates Aristotle and later commentators: Aristotle’s deluge of Deucalion affected only Greece due to rainy winters, while Censorinus and others claim alternating global floods and conflagrations as a cosmic cycle.
arose from great inundations of rivers, during a rainy winter. But such extraordinary winters, he says, though after a certain period they return, do not always revisit the same places.[20] Censorinus quotes it as Aristotle's opinion that there were general inundations of the globe, and that they alternated with conflagrations; and that the flood constituted the winter of the great year, or astronomical cycle, while…
Lyell describes an Arabian exception where Gerbanite astronomers claimed that after 36,425 years new pairs of every species are generated and then other genera and species replace the first order indefinitely.
some lands and invades others. The same tracts, therefore, of the earth are not, some always sea, and others always continents, but every thing changes in the course of time." It seems, then, that the Greeks had not only derived from preceding nations, but had also, in some slight degree, deduced from their own observations, the theory of periodical revolutions in the inorganic world: there is, however, no ground fo…
Lyell recounts Strabo’s discussion of why marine shells occur far inland and elevated, comparing explanations by Xanthus and Strato with Strabo’s own view that land and sea rise and sink together through movable, humid substrata.
of the most difficult problems in geology, viz., by what causes marine shells came to be plentifully buried in the earth at such great elevations and distances from the sea. He notices, amongst others, the explanation of Xanthus the Lydian, who said that the seas had once been more extensive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as in his own time many lakes, rivers, and wells in Asia had failed dur…
Lyell concludes with Pliny’s largely untheorized but observant compilation of new Mediterranean islands and convulsions, arguing ancients were not inattentive to visible changes yet lacked geological investigation methods.
communicated to them from the East, with much of their learning, cannot be doubted. Caesar, it will be remembered, says that they made use of Greek letters in arithmetical computations.[31] *Pliny.*--This philosopher had no theoretical opinions of his own concerning changes of the earth's surface; and in this department, as in others, he restricted himself to the task of a compiler, without reasoning on the facts st…
Lyell reports Quirini’s 1676 rejection of Noah’s flood transporting heavy bodies to mountain tops and his alternative crystallization idea for fossils, then contrasts English views from Plot and Lister, including early calls for geological maps.
inquiry, therefore, although highly interesting to one who studies the philosophy of the human mind, is too often barren of instruction to him who searches for truths in physical science. *Quirini*, 1676.--Quirini, in 1676,[52] contended, in opposition to Scilla, that the diluvian waters could not have conveyed heavy bodies to the summit of mountains, since the agitation of the sea never (as Boyle had demonstrated) …
Lyell explains how Hooke argued that fossils are reliable natural records of antiquity, debated extinction and Earth’s past sea coverage, and proposed earthquakes as the mechanism moving shells and landforms, while his own flood-centered theory drew contradictions.
"really the several bodies they represent, or the mouldings of them petrified," and not, as some have imagined, 'a lusus naturae,' sporting herself in the needless formation of useless beings."[60] It was objected to Hooke, that his doctrine of the extinction of species derogated from the wisdom and power of the omnipotent Creator; but he answered, that, as individuals die, there may be some termination to the durat…
Lyell explains how different European nations advanced geology in stages—Germany mineralogical geology, England secondary strata, and France tertiary studies—and he highlights Cuvier and Brongniart’s work near Paris.
these principles with consistency, they in a few years disarmed all prejudice, and rescued the science from the imputation of being a dangerous, or at best but a visionary pursuit. A distinguished modern writer has with truth remarked, that the advancement of three of the main divisions of geological inquiry have during the last half century been promoted successively by three different nations of Europe,--the Germa…
Lyell shows how Italian geologists eventually rejected earlier creationist and plastic-power theories by comparing fossils with living species and by studying modern submarine and volcanic processes using instruments.
bringing to light new facts, they would indulge in the more easy and indolent employment of framing imaginary theories concerning catastrophes and mighty revolutions in the system of the universe. For more than two centuries the shelly strata of the Subapennine hills afforded matter of speculation to the early geologists of Italy, and few of them had any suspicion that similar deposits were then forming in the neigh…
Lyell argues that even as evidence grew for similarity between ancient and modern causes, new geological sects kept proposing distinct “orders of nature” and demanded extraordinary proofs.
to the igneous origin of the trappean formations? By an examination of volcanoes now active, and by comparing their structure and the composition of their lavas with the ancient trap-rocks. The establishment, from time to time, of numerous points of identification, drew at length from geologists a reluctant admission, that there was more correspondence between the condition of the globe at remote eras and now, and m…
Lyell introduces objections to uniform geological causes by proposing that Northern Hemisphere climate once resembled the tropics, supported by fossil shells, corals, reptiles, and fossil plants.
DOCTRINE OF THE DISCORDANCE OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN CAUSES OF CHANGE CONTROVERTED. Climate of the Northern Hemisphere formerly different--Direct proofs from the organic remains of the Italian strata--Proofs from analogy derived from extinct quadrupeds--Imbedding of animals in icebergs--Siberian mammoths--Evidence in regard to temperature, from the fossils of tertiary and secondary rocks--From the p…
Lyell surveys traditional explanations for climate change—earth-axis shifts, comet shocks, and cooling from a red-hot origin—and rejects them in favor of linking climate to land–sea distribution and natural law.
FARTHER EXAMINATION OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE ASSUMED DISCORDANCE OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN CAUSES OF CHANGE. On the causes of vicissitudes in climate--Remarks on the present diffusion of heat over the globe--On the dependence of the mean temperature on the relative position of land and sea--Isothermal Lines--Currents from equatorial regions--Drifting of icebergs--Different temperature of Northern an…
Lyell discusses how hemispheric season lengths may relate to orbital mechanics, then argues that sea-drift and land distribution can subtly shift climate over 10,000 years, affecting temperature inequalities in polar and temperate zones.
from the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar, be drifted into the Mediterranean, so that the serene sky of that delightful region might soon be deformed by clouds and mists. Before the amount of difference between the temperature of the two hemispheres was ascertained, it was referred by many astronomers to the precession of the equinoxes, or the acceleration of the earth's motion in its perihelium; in consequ…
Lyell discusses Sir John Herschel’s astronomical climate idea: solar radiation could vary with Earth’s orbital eccentricity, which is decreasing, though calculations including planetary perturbations are not yet done.
not be a legitimate conclusion; but that on the contrary, the *mean* amount of solar radiation is dependent on the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and therefore liable to variation.[205] Now the eccentricity of the orbit, he continues, is actually diminishing, and has been so for ages beyond the records of history. In consequence, the ellipse is in a state of approach to a circle, and the annual average of solar …
Lyell challenges the popular claim that Earth’s primitive internal heat steadily diminished to explain climate change, citing evidence against contraction and discussing competing mathematical and experimental arguments.
any perceptible alteration in their power of radiating heat. But before we can speculate with advantage in this new and interesting field of inquiry, we require more facts and observations. *Supposed gradual diminution of the earth's primitive heat.*--The gradual diminution of the supposed primitive heat of the globe has been resorted to by many geologists as the principal cause of alterations of climate. The matter…
Lyell addresses whether human interference breaks uniform natural law, rejecting absolute uniformity but maintaining that moral agency does not subvert physical laws, illustrated by analogies to colonization and scientific inference from similar cases.
Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo Dilectos heroas; erunt etiam altera bella, Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles.[232] The geologist, however, may condemn these tenets as absurd, without running into the opposite extreme, and denying that the order of nature has, from the earliest periods, been uniform in the same sense in which we believe it to be uniform at present, and expect it to rema…
He argues against claims that granite and gneiss were produced mainly in the primeval age, using ‘hypogene’ subterranean formation to explain why tertiary and newer crystalline rocks are rarely visible.
the quantity produced has been always on the decrease, until it became very inconsiderable in the Oolitic and Cretaceous periods, and quite evanescent before the commencement of the tertiary epoch. Now the justness of these views depends almost entirely on the question whether granite, gneiss, and other rocks of the same order ever originated at the surface, or whether, according to the opinions above adopted, they …
Lyell argues that the fossil record looks broken—species change abruptly and strata tilt differently—so some think catastrophes occurred, but he promises to explain these gaps without sudden revolutions through continuous processes.
UNIFORMITY IN THE SERIES OF PAST CHANGES IN THE ANIMATE AND INANIMATE WORLD. Supposed alternate periods of repose and disorder--Observed facts in which this doctrine has originated--These may be explained by supposing a uniform and uninterrupted series of changes--Threefold consideration of this subject; first, in reference to the living creation, extinction of species, and origin of new animals and …
He proposes a uniform, uninterrupted series of gradual changes to reproduce apparent stratigraphic discontinuities, and outlines a three-part discussion: living change, crustal movements, and rules of sediment deposition.
rendered still more so by time--that a great part of what remains is inaccessible to man, and even of that fraction which is accessible, nine-tenths are to this day unexplored. _How the facts may be explained by assuming a uniform series of changes._--The readiest way, perhaps, of persuading the reader that we may dispense with great and sudden revolutions in the geological order of events, is by showing him how a r…
He shifts to crustal dynamics: some regions are earthquake-prone while others rise or subside slowly (e.g., Sweden, Greenland), and he infers repeated movements from unconformable strata rather than global catastrophe.
upheaval is proved by the occurrence in inland spots, several hundred feet high, of deposits filled with fossil shells of species now living either in the ocean or the Baltic. To detect proofs of slow and gradual subsidence must in general be more difficult; but the theory which accounts for the form of circular coral reefs and lagoon islands, and which will be explained in the last chapter of the third book, will s…
Lyell illustrates uniform, local disturbances through unconformities—Silurian vertical near Wales and Shropshire overlaid by horizontal carboniferous rocks, plus comparisons in Sweden, Russia, Yorkshire, the Pyrenees, and Somerset—showing changes without universal destruction.
sandstone supports on its curved and inclined beds the horizontal Chalk. The Chalk again is vertical on the flanks of the Pyrenees, and the tertiary strata repose unconformably upon it. *Consistency of local disturbances with general uniformity.*--As almost every country supplies illustrations of the same phenomena, they who advocate the doctrine of alternate periods of disorder and repose may appeal to the facts ab…
Using a thought experiment about a bay filled by fluviatile mud, Lyell argues that subsidence matching sediment supply prevents terrestrial exposure, yet the geological record still requires rare accidents and uplift for fossils to be found.
But, if the bottom be lowered by sinking at the same rate that it is raised by fluviatile mud, the bay can never be turned into dry land. In that case one new layer of matter may be superimposed upon another for a thickness of many thousand feet, and the fossils of the inferior beds may differ greatly from those entombed in the uppermost, yet every intermediate gradation may be indicated in the passage from an older …
He notes Darwin’s conclusion that stationary or rising sea levels hinder thick shelly deposits, and he uses European and North American Miocene examples and fossil gaps to argue subsidence patterns control preservation.
us to trace the signs of a gradual change in the living creation, than a fragment of Chinese history will fill up a blank in the political annals of Europe. The absence of any deposits of importance containing recent shells in Chili, or anywhere on the western coast of South America, naturally led Mr. Darwin to the conclusion that "where the bed of the sea is either stationary or rising, circumstances are far less f…
Lyell describes how some gaps in the fossil record can be bridged by intervening formations in Germany and Devonian/Old Red Sandstone links, while other discontinuities may persist in the sedimentary series.
Cretaceous and Eocene periods in Europe. Still we must expect, for reasons before stated, that some such chasms will forever continue to occur in some parts of our sedimentary series. _Consistency of the theory of gradual change with the existence of great breaks in the series._--To return to the general argument pursued in this chapter, it is assumed, for reasons above explained, that a slow change of species is in…
He compares species change to repeated censuses taken by commissioners across provinces, stressing irregularities in deposition, destructive processes, and the resulting uneven fossil continuity.
to the accelerated rate of fluctuation in the fauna and flora of a particular region, in which the climate and physical geography may be undergoing an extraordinary degree of alteration. But I must remind the reader, that the case above proposed has no pretensions to be regarded as an exact parallel to the geological phenomena which I desire to illustrate; for the commissioners are supposed to visit the different pr…
Lyell uses the example of buried cities at Vesuvius to argue that discontinuities in the record do not imply sudden language or species replacement, since burial timing may be unrelated to underlying biological change.
abrupt passage from a Greek to a Roman, and from a Roman to an Italian city, would afford proof of fluctuations no less sudden in the language of the people. So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the plan of Nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an unbroken series of monuments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the organic creation, we might infer the sudden extirpation of species, and th…
He concludes that assuming discordance between ancient and modern causes fosters indolence and speculative geology, and he reiterates his method of reconciling past with present processes via observation.
the contrary, the claims of each new hypothesis to credibility appeared enhanced by the great contrast, in kind or intensity, of the causes referred to, and those now in operation. Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the ancient and existing causes of change. It produced a state of mind unfavorable in th…
Lyell ends this section by stating that the rest of the work will examine current changes in earth’s crust and organisms, arguing that studying present processes illuminates distant ancient events.
has led invariably to a multitude of contradictory systems, which have been overthrown one after the other,--have been found incapable of modification,--and which have often required to be precisely reversed. The remainder of this work will be devoted to an investigation of the changes now going on in the crust of the earth and its inhabitants. The importance which the student will attach to such researches will mai…
In the new chapter’s opening, Lyell defines geology and divides inorganic change into aqueous and igneous causes, explaining how these forces interact and outlining how he will treat water-related processes like rain and rivers.
CHANGES IN THE INORGANIC WORLD. AQUEOUS CAUSES. Division of the subject into changes of the organic and inorganic world--Inorganic causes of change divided into aqueous and igneous--Aqueous causes first considered--Fall of rain--Recent rain-prints in mud--Destroying and transporting power of running water--Newly formed valleys in Georgia--Sinuosities of rivers--Two streams when united do not occ…
Lyell explains how decreasing temperature from equator to pole reduces rainfall, then details extreme, local deluges in England and India caused by monsoon winds, vapor condensation, and orographic uplift over the Khasia and adjacent regions.
excess of vapor previously held in suspension by the warmer of the two is given out, and if it be in sufficient abundance is precipitated in the form of rain. As the temperature of the atmosphere diminishes gradually from the equator towards the pole, the evaporation of water and the quantity of rain diminish also. According to Humboldt's computation, the average annual depth of rain at the equator is 96 inches, whi…
Lyell reflects that 19th-century earthquakes show ongoing geological change—new rocks, hot springs, raised coasts, sinking deltas, and Tomboro’s destruction—arguing against the idea the Earth is at rest.
Mexican plateau, the massive current of basaltic lava which poured out from its crater would have enabled it to withstand, for a long period, the action of a turbulent sea. *Reflections on the earthquakes of the nineteenth century.*--We are now about to pass on to the events of the eighteenth century; but before we leave the consideration of those already enumerated, let us pause for a moment, and reflect how many r…
Lyell reviews theories for terrestrial magnetism and electric currents, including chemical action and thermo-electricity tied to solar heating cycles, and then links magnetism to internal electric current possibilities.
according to the experiments of Mr. Fox, on the electro-magnetic properties of metalliferous veins, some trace of electric currents seems to have been detected in the interior of the earth.[756] Some philosophers ascribe these currents to the chemical action going on in the superficial parts of the globe to which air and water have the readiest access; while others refer them, in part at least, to thermo-electricity…
Lyell argues that living plants and animals can reshape Earth’s surface and seafloor—like coral reefs and floating timber—by contributing material and stabilizing deposits, even when their direct terrestrial effects seem limited.
EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE POWERS OF VITALITY ON THE STATE OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE. Modifications in physical geography caused by organic beings--Why the vegetable soil does not augment in thickness--The theory, that vegetation is an antagonist power counterbalancing the degradation caused by running water untenable--Conservative influence of vegetation--Rain diminished by felling of forests--Distributio…
This introduction explains why Lyell’s 1863 Antiquity of Man mattered after Darwin and Wallace, arguing Lyell’s geology and insistence on observation shaped evolutionary thinking and how the book is structured with evidence first, then evolutionary connections.
THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN By Sir Charles Lyell, BT., F.R.S., Etc. London: Published By J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. And In New York By E.P. Dutton & Co. With Introduction And Notes By R.H. Rastall, M.A., F.G.S. EVERYMAN I WILL GO WITH THEE & BE THY GUIDE IN THY MOST NEED TO GO BY THY SIDE. EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS. SCIENCE. HOC SOLUM SCIO QUOD NIHIL SCIO. I…
Rastall defines Uniformitarianism (“the present is the key to the past”) against catastrophism, critiques Lyell’s backward method from recent formations, and notes new finds and debates about human antiquity and “missing links.”
if later researches showed these inferences to be wrong, unlike some of his contemporaries, he never hesitated to say so. Thus and thus only is true progress in science attained. Lyell is universally recognised as the leader of the Uniformitarian school of geologists, and it will be well to consider briefly what is implied in this term. The principles of Uniformitarianism may be summed up thus: THE PRESENT IS THE KE…
The editor reviews evidence for early humans, including Palaeolithic flint tool sequences, interglacial survival, specific European glaciation episodes, human affinities across regions, and competing explanations for British glacial history.
The Pithecanthropus of Java alone shows perhaps more affinity to the apes. The whole subject has been most ably discussed by Professor Sollas in his recent book entitled "Ancient Hunters." The study of Palaeolithic flint implements has been raised to a fine art. Both in England and France a regular succession of primitive types has been established and correlated with the gravel terraces of existing rivers, and even…
Rastall concludes that Lyell’s book succeeds despite limited evidence, and describes this 1914 edition: modernized stratigraphic nomenclature, shortened notes, and the aim of providing an accessible overview of Lyell’s influence.
that the result was eminently successful, taking into account the paucity of the available material, and the "Antiquity of Man" must ever remain one of the classics of prehistoric archaeology. This edition of the "Antiquity of Man" has been undertaken in order to place before the public in an easily accessible form one of the best known works of the great geologist Sir Charles Lyell; the book had an immense influenc…
Lyell explains his geological naming scheme (Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene) based on the proportion of fossil shells matching living species, relating it to earlier work by Deshayes of Paris.
of Paris and London, with others of like age; the Middle, those of Bordeaux and Touraine; and the Upper, all that lay above or were newer than the last-mentioned group. When engaged in 1828 in preparing for the press the treatise on geology above alluded to, I conceived the idea of classing the whole of this series of strata according to the different degrees of affinity which their fossil testacea bore to the livin…
Lyell explains his geological time terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene based on proportions of fossil shell species matching living species, and then defines Recent versus Pleistocene by the presence of extinct fossil mammals.
mind that the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene were originally invented with reference purely to conchological data, and in that sense have always been and are still used by me. Since the first introduction of the terms above defined, the number of new living species of shells obtained from different parts of the globe has been exceedingly great, supplying fresh data for comparison, and enabling the palaeontologi…
Lyell argues cave mixtures can mislead, but claims newer evidence shows humans and mammoths coexisted in undisturbed deposits, leading him to re-examine Belgian caves.
(* "Principles" 9th edition page 740.) That such intermixtures have really taken place in some caverns, and that geologists have occasionally been deceived, and have assigned to one and the same period fossils which had really been introduced at successive times, will readily be conceded. But of late years we have obtained convincing proofs, as we shall see in the sequel, that the mammoth, and many other extinct mam…
Lyell explains how limestone caverns in the Meuse basin filled through fissures, why stalagmite layers form only after drainage shifts, and how chemical lime-rich water can preserve and consolidate cave-bone deposits.
stalagmite, some of the incrustation may readily be torn up when heavy fragments of rock are hurried by a flood through passages inclined at angles of 30 or 40 degrees. The decay and decomposition of the fossil bones seem to have been arrested in most of the caves by a constant supply of water charged with carbonate of lime, which dripped from the roofs while the caves were becoming gradually filled up. By similar a…
Lyell argues that reasoning about the antiquity of cave human bones depends on extinction timing for cave faunas and on the long geologic reconfiguration of the Meuse landscape, possibly influenced by Pleistocene volcanism.
and of the hyaena, bear, and horse, are reduced to pebbles, shows that they were often transported for some distance in the channels of torrents, before they found a resting-place. When we desire to reason or speculate on the probable antiquity of human bones found fossil in such situations as the caverns near Liege, there are two classes of evidence to which we may appeal for our guidance. First, considerations of …
Lyell reports anatomical debates at Bonn and Schaaffhausen’s conclusion that the Neanderthal individual had small cerebral development and unusually strong bodily structure, adding that the forehead depression was not artificial.
(* Professor Schaaffhausen's "Memoir" translated "Natural History Review" April 1861.) In the same memoir, the Prussian anatomist remarks that the depression of the forehead (See Figure 3.), is not due to any artificial flattening, such as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations in the Old and New World, the skull being quite symmetrical, and showing no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput; where…
Lyell addresses the surprise that Engis and Neanderthal skulls differ from expected “progressive development,” arguing that Pleistocene humans may resemble living mammals and that inferior races need not predate superior ones.
progressive development, in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the Elephas primigenius than that is from us." The two skulls which form the subject of the preceding comments and illustrations have given rise to nearly an equal amount of surprise for opposite reasons; that of Engis because being so unequivocally ancient, it approached so near to the highest…
Lyell expands on the Neanderthal’s ape-like features, discusses anatomical comparisons with Europeans and “Negro” averages, and claims the Neanderthal’s deviation fits evolutionary “atavism” or transmutation theory.
lowest human brain; but the Neanderthal skull, although in several respects it is more ape-like than any human skull previously discovered, is, in regard to volume, by no means contemptible. Eminent anatomists have shown that in the average proportions of some of the bones the Negro differs from the European, and that in most of these characters, he makes a slightly nearer approach to the anthropoid quadrumana;* but…
Lyell adds that further French observers (Hebert, Desnoyers, Gaudry) supported the hatchets’ deep embedding and antiquity alongside extinct mammals, recalls older finds from Suffolk and London, and closes with Agassiz’s remark about scientific disbelief.
(* "Comptes rendus" September 26 and October 3, 1859.) In 1859, M. Hebert, an original observer of the highest authority, declared to the Geological Society of France that he had, in 1854, or four years before Mr. Prestwich's visit to St. Acheul, seen the sections at Abbeville and Amiens, and had come to the opinion that the hatchets were imbedded in the "lower diluvium," and that their origin was as ancient as that…
Lyell presents counts of extinct versus still-living marine mollusk species in British Crag deposits (Norwich, Red, Coralline), arguing the shifts show changing climate, especially cooling toward the glacial epoch.
COLUMN 3: NUMBER OF EXTINCT. COLUMN 4: PERCENTAGE OF RECENT. Norwich Crag: 69: 12: 85%. Red Crag: 130: 95: 57%. Coralline Crag: 168: 159: 51%. TABLE 12/4. RECENT SPECIES NOT LIVING NOW IN BRITISH SEAS. COLUMN 1: NAME. COLUMN 2: NUMBER OF NORTHERN. COLUMN 3: NUMBER OF SOUTHERN. Norwich Crag: 12: 0. Red Crag: 8: 16. Coralline Crag: 2: 27. In the above list I have not included the shells of the glaci…
He argues the boulder clay and glacial till show ice-rafted transport (including Scandinavian erratics traced from Norway/Sweden), then notes that overlying strata show contorted and folded deposits linked to melting ice effects.
angularity of some of the included blocks of distant origin, but also by the polished and scratched surfaces of such of them as are hard enough to retain any markings. Near Cromer, blocks of granite from 6 to 8 feet in diameter have been met with, and smaller ones of syenite, porphyry, and trap, besides the wreck of the London Clay, Chalk, Oolite, and Lias, mixed with more ancient fossiliferous rocks. Erratics of Sc…
Lyell compares glacial drift at Lowestoft in two divisions with different sources and describes cliff sections where vertical, bent sand and loam overlie horizontal laminated clays and till, producing complex folding patterns.
According to the observations of the Reverend J. Gunn and the late Mr. Trimmer, the glacial drift in the cliffs at Lowestoft consists of two divisions, the lower of which abounds in the Scandinavian blocks, supposed to have come from the north-east; while the upper, probably brought by a current from the north-west, contains chiefly fragments of Oolitic rocks, more rolled than those of the lower deposit. The united t…
He observes contorted drift north of Cromer, including chalk pinnacles enclosed in till, and argues ice-island grounding and melting-ice processes can explain why upper strata moved while underlying chalk stayed level.
that which seems the nucleus being, in fact, the innermost bed of the series, which has become partially visible by the removal of the protuberant portions of the outer layers. To the north of Cromer are other fine illustrations of contorted drift reposing on a floor of Chalk horizontally stratified and having a level surface. These phenomena, in themselves sufficiently difficult of explanation, are rendered still m…
Lyell summarizes arguments from northern Scotland—glacial furrows, polished sea-facing rock, and erratic granite—for ice moving from higher inland regions toward coasts, and critiques floating-ice and submergence explanations in favor of large-scale continental ice.
and Ross-shire he shows that the glacial furrows along the north coast point northwards, and in Argyleshire westwards, always in accordance with the direction of the principal glens and fjords. Another argument is also adduced by him in proof of the ice having exerted its mechanical force in a direction from the higher and more inland country to the lower region and sea-coast. Isolated hills and minor prominences of…
Lyell describes a high stratified drift at Meal Uaine in Perthshire with glacially polished boulders, notes Jamieson’s submergence inference, then proposes an alternative glacier-damming explanation for its deposition without marine shells.
water. Some beds consist of an impalpable mud, like putty, apparently derived from the grinding down of felspar, and resembling the mud produced by the grinding action of modern glaciers. Mr. Jamieson, when he first gave an account of this drift, inferred, in spite of the absence of marine shells, that it implied the submergence of Scotland beneath the ocean after the commencement of the glacial period, or after the…