Sir Charles Lyell

“ How faint an idea does this exclamation of the poet convey of the real wonders of nature! for here we discover proofs that the calcareous and siliceous dust of which hills are composed has not only been once alive, but almost every particle, albeit invisible to the naked eye, still retains the organic structure which, at periods of time incalculably remote, was impressed upon it by the powers of life. ”

“ If once in half a century an equal amount of change were produced suddenly by the momentary shock of an earthquake, history would be filled with records of such wonderful revolutions of the earth's surface ”

“ When we desire to classify, it is necessary to contemplate entire groups of strata in the aggregate; but if we wish to understand the mode of their formation, and to explain their origin, we must think only of the minute subdivisions of which each mass is composed. We must bear in mind how many thin leaf-like seams of matter, each containing the remains of myriads of testacea and plants, frequently enter into the composition of a single stratum, and how vast a succession of these strata unite to form a single group! ”

“ With equal justice might an astronomer be accused of asserting that the works of creation extended throughout infinite space, because he refuses to take for granted that the remotest stars now seen in the heavens are on the utmost verge of the material universe. Every improvement of the telescope has brought thousands of new worlds into view; and it would, therefore, be rash and unphilosophical to imagine that we already survey the whole extent of the vast scheme, or that it will ever be brought within the sphere of human observation. ”

“ After the upheaval, or during it, the Mississippi cut through the old fluviatile formation of which its bluffs are now formed, just as the Rhine has in many parts of its valley excavated a passage through the ancient loess. If I was right in calculating that the present delta of the Mississippi must have required many tens of thousands of years for its growth, and if the claims of the Natchez man to have co-existed with the mastodon are admitted, it would follow that North America was peopled by the human race many tens of thousands of years before our time. ”

“ Yet when the geologist inquires if any land-animals of a higher grade than reptiles lived during any one of these three periods, the rocks are all silent, save one thin layer a few inches in thickness; and this single page of the earth’s history has suddenly revealed to us in a few weeks the memorials of so many species of fossil mammalia, that they already outnumber those of many a subdivision of the tertiary series, and far surpass those of all the other secondary rocks put together! ”

“ So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is part of the plan of Nature to preserve, in every region of the globe, an unbroken series of monuments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the organic creation, we might infer the sudden extirpation of species, and the simultaneous introduction of others, as often as two formations in contact are found to include dissimilar organic fossils. But we must shut our eyes to the whole economy of the existing causes, aqueous, igneous, and organic, if we fail to perceive that such in not the plan of Nature. ”

“ Although the speakers may be unconscious that any great fluctuation is going on in their language—although when we observe the manner in which new words and phrases are thrown out, as if at random or in sport, while others get into vogue, we may think the process of change to be the result of mere chance—there are nevertheless fixed laws in action, by which, in the general struggle for existence, some terms and dialects gain the victory over others. ”

“ No conclusion can be more incontestable than that these angular blocks of granite, gneiss, and other crystalline formations came from the Alps, and that they have been brought for a distance of fifty miles and upward across one of the widest and deepest valleys in the world; so that they are now lodged on a chain composed of limestone and other formations, altogether distinct from those of the Alps. Their great size and angularity, after a journey of so many leagues, has justly excited wonder; for hundreds of them are as large as cottages ”

“ If, then, an intelligent being, after observing the order of events for an indefinite series of ages, had witnessed at last so wonderful an innovation as this, to what extent would his belief in the regularity of the system be weakened?—would he cease to assume that there was permanency in the laws of nature?—would he no longer be guided in his speculations by the strictest rules of induction? ”

“ It is obviously expedient that the terrestrial and fluviatile species should not only be fitted for the rivers, valleys, plains, and mountains which exist at the era of their creation, but for others that are destined to be formed before the species shall become extinct; and, in like manner, the marine species are not only made for the deep and shallow regions of the ocean existing at the time when they are called into being, but for tracts that may be submerged or variously altered in depth during the time that is allotted for their continuance on the globe. ”

“ The outpouring of repeated streams of lava—the showering down upon land and sea of volcanic ashes—the sweeping seaward of loose sand and cinders, or of rocks ground down to pebbles and sand, by rivers and torrents descending steeply inclined channels—the undermining and eating away of long lines of sea-cliff exposed to the swell of a deep and open ocean—these operations combine to produce a considerable volume of superimposed matter, without there being time for any extensive change of species. ”

“ From this vomitory the old glacier poured into the plains of the Po that wonderful accumulation of mud, gravel, boulders, and large erratics, which extend for 15 miles from above Ivrea to below Caluso and which when seen in profile from Turin have the aspect of a chain of hills. In many countries, indeed, they might rank as an important range of hills, for where they join the mountains they are more than 1500 feet high, and retain more than half that height for a great part of their course, rising very abruptly from the plain, often with a slope of from 20 to 30 degrees. ”

“ The propagation of a plant by buds or grafts, and by cuttings, is obviously a mode which nature does not employ; and this multiplication, as well as that produced by roots and layers, seems merely to operate as an extension of the life of an individual, and not as a reproduction of the species such as happens by seed. All plants increased by grafts or layers retain precisely the peculiar qualities of the individual to which they owe their origin, and, like an individual, they have only a determinate existence ”

“ The evidence of the marine origin of the highest drift is no doubt inconclusive in the absence of shells, so great is the resemblance of the gravel and sand of a sea beach and of a river’s bed, when organic remains are wanting; but, on the other hand, when we consider the general rarity of shells in drift which we know to be of marine origin, we cannot suppose that, in the shelly sands of Moel Tryfaen, we have hit upon the exact uppermost limit of marine deposition, or, in other words, a precise measure of the submergence of the land beneath the sea since the glacial period. ”