Report Case Study 25

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Brief Description of item(s) 294 manuscript notebooks of the geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875). In two series: 263 numbered notebooks, 1825-1874, on geology, natural history, social and political subjects; 31 additional notebooks, 1818-1871, with indices. Mostly octavo format. For details see Appendix 1. In good condition. 2. Context The nineteenth century saw public debate about how to conduct science reach new heights. Charles Lyell was a pivotal figure in the establishment of geology as a scientific discipline; he also transformed ideas about the relationship between human history and the history of the earth. Above all, he revealed the significance of ‘deep time’. At a time when the Anglican church dominated intellectual culture, geology was a controversial subject. Lyell played a significant part in separating the practice of science from that of religion. Through his major work, The Principles of Geology, he developed the method later adopted by Darwin for his studies into evolution. Lyell observed natural phenomena at first hand to infer their underlying causes, which he used to interpret the phenomena of the past. The method stressed not only a vast geological timescale, but also the ability of small changes to produce, eventually, large ones. The Principles combined natural history, theology, political economy, anthropology, travel, and geography. It was an immediate success, in Britain, Europe, North America and Australia. Scientists, theologians, leading authors, explorers, artists, and an increasingly educated public read and discussed it. Lyell’s inductive method strongly influenced the generation of naturalists after Darwin. Over the rest of his life, Lyell revised the Principles in the light of new research and his own changing ideas. Today, Lyell’s work remains a key reference point for earth scientists. 3. Waverley criteria We consider the collection to meet the third Waverley criterion. Lyell is widely acknowledged as the single most important figure in the development of the earth sciences in Britain. His manuscript notebooks are the key to understanding his work and the role of the earth and life sciences in the development of modern scientific knowledge. They are almost certainly the most significant scientific manuscripts of the nineteenth century to have remained in private hands in the UK. Furthermore, these private notebooks reflect the wider culture, one that Lyell’s own work helped to shape. His remarkably large and wide-ranging collection will be of great significance for researchers into late-Georgian and Victorian intellectual culture. 1 DETAILED CASE 1. Detailed description of item(s) if more than in Executive summary, and any comments. The notebooks reveal a working method that was both systematic and flexible. Throughout Lyell’s professional life, keeping notebooks was central to his activity. He wrote in them regularly and developed careful strategies to retrieve information from them. Most of the notebooks bear Lyell’s numbering on the inside cover and on a paper label at the head of the spine. The early volumes have several discrete number sequences; after 1829, Lyell began a single number sequence. Many of the volumes have indexes that he added later, generally at the back. He also filled additional notebooks with subject indexes to other notebooks. Interventions to the content, made in different inks, show that Lyell revisited his notes often. There are frequent annotations, additions, deletions, corrections, and cross-references. Some long passages have a single line through them, indicating their transfer either to another notebook or to print. The extensive visual content ranges from rough pencil sketches to fully-worked drawings, some in colour. Occasional photographs and prints have been added. Some examples of significant content are: • Early journals detailing Lyell’s formative reading and experiences of travel, during a period when he was contemplating possible futures as an author, poet, lawyer, and man of science. • Ten notebooks kept during Lyell’s tour of Italy and Sicily (1829). Lyell’s observations of the earth’s formation and volcanoes such as Vesuvius and Etna, in particular, were a formative influence on the Principles. • Seven notebooks containing extensive notes on the definition and origin of species, the origin and antiquity of man, and other related subjects. These include records of private conversations with Darwin, and the reactions of key figures to Darwin’s theory (1855-61). • Eleven volumes of notes from Lyell’s reading. These refer to printed books, articles, letters, unpublished manuscripts, Lyell’s own notebooks, and conversations. They show Lyell’s engagement with scientific sources and with literary, political, theological, and philosophical writings (1855-71). • Over fifty volumes recording four trips to North America between 1841 and 1853. These include Lyell’s impressions of Niagara Falls and other natural phenomena, which provided critical new evidence for his theories of geological change. They also record literary and social life in the major cities, meetings with notable figures, interviews with plantation owners, and observations on slavery. 2 2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item(s). The notebooks are the raw material for Lyell’s printed works. They record his developing ideas about the uniformity of nature1 and the possibility of explaining features such as climate change, species extinction and biodiversity through natural causes. They document his field studies across Britain, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and North America. They also show his extensive reading. Lyell consulted Greek and Roman authors for information on past phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and contemporary writers for the most recent findings and theories. Additionally, he recorded his conversations with fellow scientists and local informants, and copied out letters sent and received. In combination with his field investigations, Lyell’s energetic engagement with past and contemporary fellow enquirers over the course of a long professional life presents a remarkable picture of a man ‘doing science’. It is a more rounded portrayal than that found in any comparable scientific archive of the period, Darwin’s not excepted. The notebooks are an invaluable resource for understanding the evolution debates. When Darwin returned from the Beagle, Lyell was his principal mentor. Darwin kept Lyell informed about his developing theory of evolution and, following the publication of Origin of Species in 1859, sent him copies of the letters that he received. Many of these, recopied by Lyell, are unique survivals. Lyell himself continued to write privately about Darwin’s theory throughout his life. The notebooks are also of great significance for palaeontologists. Lyell collected tens of thousands of fossils across Britain, Europe and America. Many are preserved in UK collections, under-researched because Lyell’s notes are the only record of provenance and context that exists for them. Lyell engaged with the social and political issues of his day. Like Dickens, he was known for his pioneering tours of North America. The notebooks of 1841- 42 and 1845-46 record his travels from Boston to the Deep South and include reflections on education, slavery, and race: pertinent topics in the years leading up to the Civil War. Lyell’s Travels in North America and Second Visit to the United States are polished accounts of his journeys. The unguarded impressions recorded in his notebooks would be a significant resource for historians. Lyell was part of a tradition, increasingly dominant from the 1830s, of the scientist as public educator. As a result, his style of writing assumed importance. The notebooks often show him working and reworking his prose in an effort to be clear and persuasive. They deepen the picture of a man who was not only doing science but who also felt his responsibility to communicate it. 1 That is, the theory that nature has always conformed to the same laws, operating in ways that we can see around us at the present day. 3 Lyell asserted his findings and opinions confidently in print. His notebooks, however, are markedly more speculative in tone. His empirical findings gave rise to more questions; his philosophical thoughts sometimes provoked anguish. Lyell reflected on natural selection, the antiquity of man on earth, and the wider implications of scientific discovery for religious faith. If the world was continually changing and man was descended from beasts, what did this mean for man’s Scriptural place ‘a little lower than the angels’? The private space of the notebooks was a safe place in which to explore such questions. The ideas recorded in these notebooks have gained new significance in current debates on human impact on the planet and on climate change.2 Lyell founded the modern classification of later geological time and designated a special period characterised by the appearance of humans. He also developed a theory of long-term climate change based on the shifting geographical relations between land and sea, the first time that this had been done. To sum up, this is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection that reveals the working practices, experimental findings, intellectual development, political engagement, and writing strategies of one of the most influential scientists of the past two centuries. The collection is of outstanding significance to scholars of

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