Charles Lyell Speaks in the Lecture Theatre

For many of those who attended the Charles Lyell Centenary Symposium, one of the high points was the reappearance of Lyell himself (ably impersonated by John Thackray) in the lecture theatre of the Royal Institution, where some extracts from his London lectures of 1832–3 gave a vivid demonstration of his persuasive rhetoric. These extracts were also felt to illustrate Lyell's characteristic method of geological interpretation and his deeper concerns with the implications of his science, perhaps more clearly than in other published material from the earlier part of his career. At the request of several members of the symposium, I therefore give here a full version of these passages, without the ‘cuts’ and minor alterations that were necessary for the ‘performing script’. The purpose of this paper is simply to make this source-material more accessible, so that it can be used to enrich our understanding of Lyell's approach to geology at this period. I have recently published an account of the circumstances of Lyell's lectures at King's College London in 1832–3 and those at the Royal Institution in 1833, with a summary of their contents, so I shall present these fuller extracts here with the minimum of editorial notes. The two passages chosen are the longest and most continuous of those which Lyell wrote out in full rather than in note form.