Charles Lyell essays

Charles Lyell essays Charles Lyell was born on November 14, 1797 in Scotland. He was born into a family that had obtained a lot of wealth and was immediately set into the privileged class. He was the eldest of 10 siblings and had access to an extensive library. He later attended Exeter College, Oxford at the age of 19 with hopes to follow another promising career, law. However, he was unable to pursue his initial path and thus threw himself into the world of geology. He moved to London and became a very active member of the Geological Society. He was extremely opinionated and enjoyed debating about the credibility of things such as the great flood from the bible. He was an open opponent to the popular diluvial position. He believed that by witnessing the action of the environment today, it was possible to view what had happened in the future. His view is what is now known as Uniformitarian. He believed the other theories were biased and based off of stories written in the bible, not science. Because of this belief he became an active supporter of J.B. Lamarck, who is famous for his theories about evolution. Most commonly known for his idea that each generation of giraffe has a longer neck because his parent stretched theirs and passed the gene on to their offspring, Lamarcks career received a giant boost due to Lyells interest in his work. What is even more astounding is that the giraffe example came about through Lyell explaining Lamarcks theory, not from Lamarck himself. In his book The Principles of Geology: Being an attempt to explain the Former Changes of the Earths Surface, by Reference to Causes now in Operation, he began to describe things such as metamorphic rocks. It also detailed the changes that rocks go through and their reaction to pressure and heat. Furthermore, he emphasized that small changes over time could ultimately lead up to large changes. The book was originally released in...