Charles Lyell - Principles of Geology - 1837

Principles of Geology
Being an Inquiry how far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface are Referable to Causes Now in Operation

The second and third volumes out of four volumes set. A seminal 19th-century scientific text by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. First published in 1830, this influential 5th London edition was released in 1837.

The volumes are illustrated with 3 fold-out plates, numerous in-text drawings and diagrams. Published by John Murray, London, 1837. Matching volumes in half leather spines with marbled boards. The spine has five bands, the titles are in gilt within the second and fourth compartments. Marbled end papers and all page edges.

Book Dimensions: 18 x 11 cm and Number of Pages: 442 and 447

Condition
Firm and well bound volumes. External covers are clean and in nice shape, and with some scuffing to the leather and wear to corners, edges, and to head and foot of the spines. Internally; the books in very good condition. No names or inscriptions. Inner hinges are very good. Pages are tightly held at the gutter. Pages are clean. The text is bright. All plates are present and in nice condition (Handsome Copies) (Please see pictures).


======================

The Author
“Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, FRS (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining Earth's history. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology (1830–33), which presented to a wide public audience the idea that Earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities.

He was a close friend of Charles Darwin, and contributed significantly to Darwin's thinking on the processes involved in evolution. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species, "He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume." Lyell helped to arrange the simultaneous publication in 1858 of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection”.