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Principles of Geology / or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology

Charles, Sir Lyell

  • Essays
  • Book language: English
  • 1099 pages

Principles of Geology is Charles Lyell’s essayistic survey of the Earth’s changing surface. It argues that familiar, gradual processes—rivers, volcanoes, erosion, sedimentation—can explain the planet’s history when observed over immense spans of time. Its clear reasoning and wealth of examples make it rewarding for anyone curious about how geology became a historical science.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

Transcribers note:
There are a very large number of words in the text
which occur joined, hyphenated and separated with
similar frequencies. No attempt has been made to
assure consistency as this would mean revising the
whole book.
PRINCIPLES
OF
GEOLOGY.
VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS AT PUZZUOLI
VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS AT PUZZUOLI IN 1836
PRINCIPLES
OF
GEOLOGY.
OR,
THE MODERN CHANGES OF THE EARTH AND ITS
INHABITANTS
CONSIDERED AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF GEOLOGY.

BY

SIR CHARLES LYELL, M.A. F.R.S.

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON; AUTHOR OF "A MANUAL OF

ELEMENTARY GEOLOGY," "TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA," "A SECOND

VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES," ETC. ETC.

NEW AND ENTIRELY REVISED EDITION.

ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS, PLATES, AND WOODCUTS.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON & CO., 346 & 348 BROADWAY.

M.DCCC.LIV.

"Verè scire est per causas scire."—Bacon.

"The stony rocks are not primeval, but the daughters of

Time."—Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 5, Stockholm, 1748, p. 219.

"Amid all the revolutions of the globe, the economy of nature has been uniform, and her laws are the only things that have resisted the general movement. The rivers and the rocks, the seas and the continents have been changed in all their parts; but the laws which direct those changes, and the rules to which they are subject, have remained invariably the same."—Playfair, Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, § 374.

"The inhabitants of the globe, like all the other parts of it, are subject to change. It is not only the individual that perishes, but whole species.

"A change in the animal kingdom seems to be a part of the order of Nature, and is visible in instances to which human power cannot have extended."—Playfair, Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, § 413.

PREFACE TO THE NINTH EDITION.

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Contents

  1. GEOLOGY.
  2. GEOLOGY.
  3. ELEMENTARY GEOLOGY;

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