Lyell, Sir Charles (lī`əl), 1797–1875, British geologist. After studying and briefly practicing law, he spent most of his life in travel and in popularizing scientific ideas. He championed and won general acceptance of the theory of uniformity of causes, which was first proposed by James Hutton Hutton, James, 1726–97, Scottish geologist, chemist, and naturalist. He was initially attracted to chemistry; he entered the legal profession at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. (as opposed to the theory of catastrophism catastrophism (kətăs`trəfĭzəm)
..... Click the link for more information. ) in his Principles of Geology (3 vol., 1830–33), which went into 12 editions in his lifetime. Lyell furthered the idea central to uniformitarianism uniformitarianism, in geology, doctrine holding that changes in the earth's surface that occurred in past geologic time are referable to the same causes as changes now being produced upon the earth's surface.
..... Click the link for more information. , that the present processes acted on the earth in the same way all the way through time and at about the same intensity. He also brought up the idea that all processes (i.e., biological and geological) were delicately balanced. In addition to Elements of Geology (1838) and The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), he wrote two books on his travels in North America. Lyell's work was influential in shaping 19th-century ideas not only in geology specifically, but in scientific fields as a whole; he facilitated later acceptance of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Among Lyell's other important contributions was the division of the Tertiary period into the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs.

Bibliography

See his Life, Letters, and Journals, ed. by his sister-in-law, K. M. Lyell (2 vol., 1881); study by L. G. Wilson (3 vol., 1972).

Lyell, Sir Charles

Charles Lyell, detail of a replica in oil by Lowes Cato Dickinson, 1883; in the National Portrait …

(credit: Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London)

(born Nov. 14, 1797, Kinnordy, Forfarshire, Scot.—died Feb. 22, 1875, London, Eng.) Scottish geologist. While studying law at the University of Oxford, he became interested in geology and later met such notable geologists as Alexander von Humboldt and Georges Cuvier. Lyell came to believe that there were natural (as opposed to supernatural) explanations for all geologic phenomena, a position he supported with many examples in his three-volume Principles of Geology (1830–33). A recognized leader in his field, he gained the friendship of other well-known men of science, including the Herschel family and Charles Darwin, whose Origin of Species (1859) persuaded Lyell to accept evolution. Lyell was largely responsible for the general acceptance of the concept of uniformitarianism in geology.