Lyell, Charles

1. Nineteenth-century Scottish natural philosopher who laid the foundations for the modern sciences of geology and evolutionary biology . His book Principles of Geology had an enormous influence on other scientists in the nineteenth century, especially Charles Darwin . He was the founder of the doctrine of uniformitarianism, which holds that all processes on the Earth are the same today as they have been in the past. Geologists often use the slogan “the present is the key to the past” to summarize Lyell's ideas.

Example Sentences

Sir Charles Lyell, when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very high idea of them all.

From Project Gutenberg

Sir Charles Lyell notices with exemplary impartiality the spirit of intolerance on both sides.

From Project Gutenberg

This letter shows the difficulty which the inscription for Sir Charles Lyell's memorial gave his friends.

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This iconoclast was Charles Lyell, the Scotchman, who was soon to be famous as the greatest geologist of his time.

From Project Gutenberg

Charles Lyell estimates the delta of the Mississippi Valley to be at least one hundred thousand years old.

From Project Gutenberg