CHAPTER XI.

THE EVENING OF LIFE.

The second and third editions of the "Antiquity of Man" were not mere reprints, since new materials were constantly coming in and researches were continued; for during the summer of 1863 Sir Charles was rambling about Wales, visiting the caves of Gower in Pembrokeshire, and of Cefn in Denbighshire, the peats of Anglesea, and the boulder clay and shell-bearing sands near the top of Moel Tryfaen. He also went over to Paris, apparently about this time, to inquire into the authenticity of specimens--bones with notches upon them--which were supposed to prove man contemporaneous with the Cromer Forest Beds of England, and therefore pre-glacial. Shorter journeys were to Osborne (by Royal command), to Suffolk, and to Kent.

While engaged on the above-named book, he had persistently refused more than one position of honour--such as a Trusteeship at the British Museum, to be a candidate for the representation of the University of London in Parliament, even an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh because he was too busy to undertake the journey. In 1861, also, he seems to have received a warning that he was beginning to grow old, for he became rather seriously unwell, and was ordered to Kissingen in Bavaria to take a course of the waters. But during the same period two acceptable honours were received--namely, the Corresponding Membership of the Institute of France, in 1862, and an order of Scientific Merit from the King of Prussia in the following year.

The years, as must be the case when life's evening shadows are lengthening, begin to be more definitely chequered with losses and with rewards. In his letters, references to the death of friends become frequent. In 1862 Mrs. Horner, Lady Lyell's mother, died, and in 1864 her father, Leonard Horner, with whom, even for some years before becoming his son-in-law, Lyell had been in constant friendly correspondence, passed away in his eightieth year. In the same year Lyell was raised to the rank of baronet, and also occupied the presidential chair at the meeting of the British Association at Bath.

His address deals principally with two topics--one local, thermal springs, especially those of Bath; the other general, the glacial epoch and its relation to the antiquity of man. He refers, however, in the concluding paragraph to the marked change which, within his memory, opinion had undergone, in regard to catastrophic changes and the origin of species, and to the discovery of the supposed fossil _Eozoon Canadense_ in the crystalline Laurentian rocks of Canada. This singular structure appeared to him--as it did to Sir W. Logan, who had brought specimens for exhibition at the meeting--to be a fossil organism,[137] and thus to indicate the existence of living creatures at a much earlier period than hitherto had been supposed. But in stating this opinion he checks himself characteristically with these words: "I will not venture on speculations respecting 'the signs of a beginning,' or 'the prospects of an end' of our terrestrial system--that wide ocean of scientific conjecture on which so many theorists before my time have suffered shipwreck."

The address contains more than one passage that is well worth quotation, but the following has so wide a bearing, and is so significant as to the effects of early influences, that it should not be forgotten:--

"When speculations on the long series of events which occurred in the Glacial and post-Glacial periods are indulged in, the imagination is apt to take alarm at the immensity of the time required to interpret the monuments of these ages, all referable to the era of existing species. In order to abridge the number of centuries which would otherwise be indispensable, a disposition is shown by many to magnify the rate of change in prehistoric times, by investing the causes which have modified the animate and inanimate world with extraordinary and excessive energy. It is related of a great Irish orator of our day, that when he was about to contribute somewhat parsimoniously towards a public charity, he was persuaded by a friend to make a more liberal donation. In doing so, he apologised for his first apparent want of generosity by saying that his early life had been a constant struggle with scanty means, and that 'they who are born to affluence cannot easily imagine how long a time it takes to get the chill of poverty out of one's bones.' In like manner, we of the living generation, when called upon to make grants of thousands of centuries in order to explain the events of what is called the modern period, shrink naturally at first from making what seems to be so lavish an expenditure of past time. Throughout our early education we have been accustomed to such strict economy in all that relates to the chronology of the earth and its inhabitants in remote ages, so fettered have we been by old traditional beliefs, that even when our reason is convinced and we are persuaded that we ought to make more liberal grants of time to the geologist, we feel how hard it is to get the chill of poverty out of our bones."[138]

A presidential address to the British Association is no light task; but, in addition to this, Lyell was now engaged upon a new edition of the "Elements (or Manual) of Geology," which for some time had been urgently demanded; the last edition also of the "Principles"--though 5,000 copies had been printed--was practically exhausted. The former work was cleared off before the end of the year, the book appearing in January, 1865, and the latter was at once taken vigorously in hand, as we see from a letter questioning Sir John Herschel about the earth-pillars on the Rittnerhorn, near Botzen, and on the influence which changes in the shape of the earth's orbit and the position of its axis would have upon climate--a view which had been advocated by Dr. Croll. Lyell, it will be remembered, had originally regarded geographical conditions as the only factors which modified climate, but he was evidently impressed by Croll's argument, and ready, if his mathematics were correct, to admit astronomical changes as an independent, though probably less potent, cause of variation.

The Christmas of 1864 and the following New Year were spent in Berlin, and in the summer of 1865 he had again recourse to Kissingen. Though he writes that the waters "did him neither harm nor good," he was at any rate well enough after the "cure" to undertake a rather lengthy tour with Lady Lyell and his nephew[139] Leonard, in the course of which he examined for himself the wonderful earth-pillars near Botzen, and visited the Maerjalen See, that pretty lake held up by the ice of the great Aletsch Glacier, in order to see whether it threw any light on the origin of the parallel roads of Glenroy. He was satisfied that it did, for he found there a large terrace "exactly on a level with the col which separates the valley" occupied by the lake from that of the Viesch glacier. On his return to England, he writes a long letter to Sir John Herschel, discussing the origin of these earth-pillars, and making inquiries as to the precise points from which his friend, more than forty years before, had made some elaborate drawings. The expedition, as well as the letter, to quote Lyell's own words, were pretty well for a man who was "battling with sixty-eight years." He complains, however, of little more than occasional attacks of lumbago, and a necessity for taking great care of himself; but his eyes were now more troublesome than they had been, and for the last year he had been driven to avail himself of the services of a secretary,[140] with the result that he seemed to have acquired a new lease of his eyes, and to be able, for ordinary purposes, to use them almost as well as formerly.

After his return from the Continent Sir Charles was working hard at the new edition of the "Principles," which obviously gave him much trouble, for letters still remain which were written to Herschel on questions relating to climate and astronomy; to Hooker, Wallace, and Darwin on the transmutation of species, the distribution and migration of plants and animals, the effects of geographical changes, and even on such matters as the Triassic reptilia of Elgin and Warwickshire, Central India and the Cape. At last the first volume of the new and much-enlarged edition (tenth) was published in November, 1866, the second volume not appearing till 1868. Few men at that time of life could have accomplished such a piece of work, especially if they had been compelled, as Lyell was, to read with the eyes and write with the hands of others. But even now, in regard to field work, he was still able to see things for himself, and, though less vigorous than formerly, to undertake journeys of moderate length. In 1866, in company with his nephew Leonard, he examined the Glacial and late Tertiary deposits of the Suffolk coasts; looked once more at the sections of Jurassic rocks in the Isle of Portland and the neighbourhood of Weymouth, and doubtless speculated on the origin of the Chesil Bank and of the Fleet. One honour fell to him in this year, which, doubtless, only the accident of his long service on the Council had previously kept from him--namely, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society.

In 1867 he was strong enough to visit the Paris Exhibition, after which he went to Forfarshire, and attended the meeting of the British Association at Dundee. In the following year he was present at the same gathering in Norwich, besides making various shorter journeys in England and spending September in Pembrokeshire with Lady Lyell and his brother's family,[141] in whose company evidently he took much pleasure.

In the spring of 1868 he was again in the field, examining the splendid plant remains of Eocene age in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth and Poole, and the shallow-water deposits of the Purbeck group ripple-marked and sun-cracked, together with the traces of their ancient forests. Over these he became as enthusiastic as any young geologist. At this time also, apparently, he visited the Blackmore Museum[142] at Salisbury, and himself found reindeer antlers in the neighbouring gravels at Fisherton. In the autumn they again stayed at Tenby with Colonel Lyell's family, when one of the latter was attacked by a serious illness. But Sir Charles was able to take his nephew Leonard to St. David's, and examine the magnificent sections of fossiliferous Cambrian rocks, under the guidance of Dr. H. Hicks, whose name is inseparably connected with the geology of this district.

Comparatively few records are preserved of the last six years of his life; still they are enough to show that his interest in science never flagged. The few letters which have been printed show no signs of declining mental strength. Though his bodily powers had become less vigorous, though his sight was weak, and his limbs were less firm than in the olden times, he was by no means ready to be laid altogether on the shelf. For instance, in the spring of 1869 he went back to the coast of Suffolk and Norfolk, to resume work which he had been unable to complete on his last visit.

Starting at Aldborough, where Pliocene deposits are still exposed, from the Coralline Crag up to the Chillesford group, they examined the coasts by Southwold and Kessingland to Lowestoft, seeing "a continuous section, for miles unbroken, of the deposits from the upper part of the Pliocene to the glacial drift." The Kessingland cliffs afforded good sections of the "Forest Bed," the deposit which on former occasions he had studied in the neighbourhood of Cromer. It was covered by several yards of stratified sand, and that by glacial drift, "with the usual 'boulders' of chalk, flint, lias, sandstone, and other sedimentaries, with crystalline rocks from more distant places." Passing on into Norfolk, they followed this "Forest Bed" and the overlying boulder clay, and they found in the latter, near Happisburgh, some fragments of sea-shells, and one perfect valve of _Tellina solidula_ in a band of gravel, "like a fragment of an old sea-beach," intercalated in the glacial clay. As the origin of this clay has been, of late years, a subject of dispute, it may be interesting to quote Sir Charles's conclusion:--"I suppose, therefore, we must set it down as a marine formation; and underneath it, from Happisburgh to Cromer, comes the famous lignite bed and submarine forest, which must have sunk down to allow of the unquestionable glacial formation being everywhere superimposed."[143]

On revisiting Sherringham (a village about five miles along the coast to the west of Cromer), he found a striking instance of that "sea change" to which in his early days he had called attention. "Leonard and I" (he writes to Sir C. Bunbury) "have just returned from Sherringham, where I found that the splendid old Hythe pinnacle of chalk, in which the flints were vertical, between seventy and eighty feet high, the grandest erratic in the world, of which I gave a figure in the first edition of my "Principles," has totally disappeared. The sea has advanced on the lofty cliff so much in the last ten years, that it may well have carried away the whole pinnacle in the thirty years which have elapsed since our first visit."

Another letter, bearing date in the next month, to Darwin shows that in his seventy-second year his mind was fresh and keen as ever. It discusses an article written by Wallace in the _Quarterly Review_, and indicates the difference in regard to natural selection between Lyell's own standpoint and that of his correspondent. The following extract may serve to show the general tenor of the remarks:--"As I feel that progressive development in evolution cannot be entirely explained by natural selection, I rather hail Wallace's suggestion that there may be a Supreme Will and Power, which may not abdicate its functions of interference, but may guide the forces and laws of Nature." In another passage he refers, to a controversy which had been recently started by Professor (afterwards Sir A.) Ramsay, and over which geologists have been fighting ever since--viz. whether lake-basins are excavated by glaciers. The passage is worth quoting, for it puts the issue in a form which after a quarter of a century is virtually unchanged:--

"As to the scooping out of lake-basins by glaciers, I have had a long, amicable, but controversial correspondence with Wallace on that subject, and I cannot get over (as, indeed, I have admitted in print) an intimate connection between the number of lakes of modern date and the glaciation of the regions containing them. But as we do not know how ice can scoop out Lago Maggiore to a depth of 2,600 feet, of which all but 600 is below the level of the sea, getting rid of the rock supposed to be worn away as if it was salt that had melted, I feel that it is a dangerous causation to admit in explanation of every cavity which we have to account for, including Lake Superior. They who use it seem to have it always at hand, like the 'diluvial wave or the wave of translation,' or the 'convulsion of nature or catastrophe' of the old paroxysmists."[144]

In the summer he took a longer tour, going first to Westmoreland and then to Forfarshire; after which, in company with Lady Lyell and his nephew, he went to see the old rocks of Ross-shire, above Inchnadamff and Ullapool, and, as he returned, once more visited the parallel roads of Glenroy.

But, in the meantime, notwithstanding the difficulties mentioned above, he still kept working at his books. He was now engaged in modifying the "Elements of Geology." Of this, to quote the preface afterwards published, he had published "six editions between the years 1838 and 1865, beginning with a small duodecimo volume, which increased with each successive edition, as new facts accumulated, until in 1865 it had become a large and somewhat expensive work." He therefore determined, in accordance with the advice of friends, "to bring the book back again to a size more nearly approaching the original, so that it might be within the reach of the ordinary student." This was done by the omission of certain theoretical discussions and all such references to Continental geology as were not absolutely necessary.[145]

In 1870 Sir Charles continued to travel, though within the limits of these islands, for he made one journey along the coast of North Devon, and a second one to Scotland, in the course of which he visited the Isle of Arran, and on his return halted first at Ambleside and then at Liverpool, to attend the meeting of the British Association, which began on the 14th of September. The following year he paid an April visit to Tintagel, the Land's End, and other parts of Cornwall, and in the summer went to the North of England. Writing from Penrith to Sir C. Bunbury, he remarks "that he had much enjoyed his 'tour of inspection,' and had tried to make it a tour of rest, which is difficult." Naturally so, for he had been working his way from Buxton on the look-out for glacial deposits and studying especially the stratified drifts on the hills east of Macclesfield, 1,200 feet above the sea. His remarks on these show that he appreciated fully both the significance of the marine fossils which they contain and the theoretical difficulties caused by the absence of such remains in other deposits, whether in Derbyshire or the Lake District, or in the lowland between this locality and Moel Tryfaen, seventy-four miles away.

The tenth edition of the "Principles" had been quickly sold, and Sir Charles was now employed in the preparation of another one. In this less change was necessary than on the last occasion; still, the rapid increase of knowledge, more especially in regard to the temperature and currents of the sea, obliged him to make considerable alterations in the parts which dealt with these subjects and with questions of climate, so that he recast or rewrote five chapters.

It was published in January, 1872; and in the summer of that year, no doubt in view of a new edition of the "Antiquity of Man," he went to the south of France, with Lady Lyell and Professor T. M'K. Hughes, to examine the Aurignac cave. Here several human skeletons had been discovered some years before, apparently entombed with the bones of various extinct mammals, such as the cave-bear and lion, the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros--in short, with a fauna characteristic of the palaeolithic age. But was this really the date of the interment? Some distinguished geologists were of opinion that, though the cave had been then occupied by wild beasts, its floor had been disturbed, and the corpses buried in neolithic times. On this point Lyell was unable to obtain conclusive evidence, and was obliged to confine himself to a statement of the facts and arguments on either side of the question.[146]

Shortly after the publication of this new edition of the "Antiquity of Man" in January, 1873, an unexpected and irreparable bereavement darkened the evening of his days. On April 24th Lady Lyell, the companion and helpmate of forty years, was taken from him after a few days' illness from an inflammatory cold.[147] The shock was the more severe because the loss was so unforeseen. Lady Lyell was twelve years his junior, and had always enjoyed good health[148]--"youthful and vigorous for her age," as he writes--so that he "never contemplated surviving her, and could hardly believe it when the calamity happened." He bore the blow bravely, consoling himself by reflecting that the separation, at his age--nearly seventy-six--could not be for very long, and, as he writes to Professor Heer, of Zuerich, endeavouring, "by daily work at my favourite science, to forget as far as possible the dreadful change which this has made in my existence."

Lady Lyell was a woman of rare excellence. "Strength and sweetness were hers, both in no common degree. The daughter of Leonard Horner, and the niece of Francis Horner, her own excellent understanding had been carefully trained, and she had that general knowledge and those intellectual tastes which we expect to find in an educated Englishwoman; and from her childhood she had breathed the refining air of taste, knowledge, and goodness. Her marriage ... gave a scientific turn to her thoughts and studies, and she became to her husband, not merely the truest of friends and the most affectionate and sympathetic of companions, but a very efficient helper. She was frank, generous, and true; her moral instincts were high and pure; she was faithful and firm in friendship; she was fearless in the expression of opinion without being aggressive; and she had that force of character and quiet energy of temperament that gave her the power to do all that she had resolved to do.... She had more than a common share of personal beauty; but had she not been beautiful she would have been lovely, such was the charm of her manners, which were the natural expression of warmth and tenderness of heart, of quick sympathies, and of a tact as delicate as a blind man's touch."[149]

He was not, however, left to bear in solitude the burden of darkening sight and of a desolated home. His eldest sister, Miss Lyell, came from Kinnordy to take care of his house and watch over him in these last years with an affectionate devotion; and in her company and that of Professor Hughes he even carried out the plan, which had been already in contemplation, of once more going on to the Continent and of visiting Professor Heer, at Zuerich.

He worked on, as well as slowly increasing infirmities allowed, after his return to England, fully occupied in preparing a second edition of the "Student's Elements" and a new one of the "Principles."[150] In June, 1874, he again visited Cambridge, this time to receive the degree of LL.D.--an honour which that University had been strangely slow in conferring upon him.[151] It was then too evident that his strength was declining, for he became quickly fatigued by any exertion of body or mind; nevertheless, he was able soon afterwards to make once more the journey to Forfarshire, and to visit there several of his earlier geological haunts. In some of these little excursions he had as his companion Mr. J. W. Judd,[152] with whose recent researches into the ruined volcanoes of Tertiary age and the yet earlier stratified rocks in the Western Isles of Scotland Sir Charles was hardly less interested than he would have been in the days when the "Principles" was a new book. Three or four letters written about this time have been printed[153] which show, from their vigour and freshness, that the mind was still keen and bright, though the bodily machinery was becoming outworn. After his return to town he even ventured, on November 5th, to dine at the Geological Club,[154] of which he had been a member from its foundation, on its fiftieth anniversary meeting, and "spoke with a vigour which surprised his friends."

The tale, however, is nearly told; the sands of life were running low. "His failing eyesight and other infirmities now began to increase rapidly, and towards the close of the year he became very feeble. But his spirit was ever alive to his old beloved science, and his affectionate interest and thought for those about him never failed. He dined downstairs on Christmas Day with his brother's family, but shortly after that kept to his room."

On February 22nd, 1875, Charles Lyell entered into his rest. The end may have been slightly accelerated by two causes--one, the death, from inflammation of the lungs, after a short illness, of his brother,[155] Colonel Lyell, who, up to that time, had visited him almost daily; the other, the shock given to his enfeebled system by accidentally falling on the stairs a few weeks before. But in no case could it have been long delayed; the bodily frame was outworn; the hour of rest had come.

His fellow-workers in science felt unanimously that but one place of sepulture was worthy to receive the body of Charles Lyell--the Abbey of Westminster, our national Valhalla. A memorial, bearing many important signatures, was at once presented to Dean Stanley, who gave a willing consent, and the interment took place with all due solemnity on Saturday the 27th. The grave was dug in the north aisle of the nave, near that of Woodward, one of the pioneers of British geology and the founder of the chair of that science in the University of Cambridge. It is marked[156] by a slab of Derbyshire marble, which bears this inscription:--

CHARLES LYELL, BARONET, F.R.S., AUTHOR OF "THE PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY." BORN AT KINNORDY, IN FORFARSHIRE, NOVEMBER 14, 1797; DIED IN LONDON, FEBRUARY 22, 1875.

THROUGHOUT A LONG AND LABORIOUS LIFE HE SOUGHT THE MEANS OF DECIPHERING THE FRAGMENTARY RECORDS OF THE EARTH'S HISTORY IN THE PATIENT INVESTIGATION OF THE PRESENT ORDER OF NATURE, ENLARGING THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE AND LEAVING ON SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT AN ENDURING INFLUENCE.

"O LORD, HOW GREAT ARE THY WORKS, AND THY THOUGHTS ARE VERY DEEP. PSALM XCII. 5.

Sir Charles, by his will, left to the Geological Society of London the die, executed by Mr. Leonard Wyon, of a medal to be cast in bronze, and awarded annually to some geologist of distinction, whether British or foreign. He further left a sum of two thousand pounds, free of legacy duty, to the Society, in trust, the interest of it to be applied as follows:--Not less than one-third of it to accompany the medal, and the remainder to be given, in one or more portions, for the furtherance of the science. Sir Charles was succeeded in the family estates by his nephew Leonard, the eldest son of Colonel Lyell, who lives at Kinnordy, but has rebuilt the house. He was created a baronet in 1894.

FOOTNOTES:

[137] The nature of _Eozoon_, whether it be the remains of a foraminifer of unusual size and peculiar habit of growth, or merely a very exceptional arrangement of its constituent minerals, has been since the above-named date a fruitful subject of controversy. For some years the balance of opinion was in favour of an organic origin; now it seems to be distinctly tending in the other direction.

[138] Report of Brit. Assoc., 1864, p. xxiv.

[139] Colonel Lyell's eldest son, the present baronet.

[140] He was fortunate in obtaining the help of Miss Arabella Buckley, a lady of congenial tastes in literature and science.

[141] The relationship was unusually close, for Colonel Lyell had married another Miss Horner.

[142] For a description of this fine collection of prehistoric antiquities, _see_ "Flint Chips," by E. T. Stevens, 1870.

[143] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. p. 440.

[144] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. p. 443.

[145] The book, thus abbreviated, and entitled "The Student's Elements of Geology," was published in 1871. A second edition appeared in February, 1874; a third, revised by Mr. Leonard Lyell and others, in 1878; and a fourth, edited by Prof. P. M. Duncan, in 1885.

[146] "Antiquity of Man" (fourth edition), chap. vii.

[147] She had been suffering from influenza, but had accompanied her husband and nephews to Ludlow at the beginning of the month. They became uneasy at her increasing debility, and returned to town on the 14th ("Life, Letters, and Journal of Sir C. Bunbury," iii. p. 9).

[148] He mentions, on January 5th, 1856, that she had not been well enough to breakfast with him, "for the second time only since our marriage."

[149] Quoted from an obituary notice by G. S. Hillard, Esq., in the Boston (U.S.) _Daily Advertiser_ (printed in Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. p. 467).

[150] This was published after his death. He had completed one volume; the other was revised by his nephew Leonard.

[151] About the same time he was admitted to the freedom of the Turners' Company in the City of London.

[152] Now Professor Judd, F.R.S., of the Royal College of Science, South Kensington.

[153] Life, Letters, and Journals, ii. pp. 453-459.

[154] The Club consists of a certain number of Fellows of the Geological Society, who dine together before the evening meetings.

[155] His brother Thomas, who had retired from the Navy with the rank of captain, had died (unmarried) some years before at the jointure house (Shiel Hill), Kinnordy, where he had resided with one of his sisters.

[156] A marble bust, a copy by Theed of the original executed by Gibson, is placed near the grave.