Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, his first…

Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, his first book, is also his most famous, most influential, and most important.

First published in three volumes in 1830-33, it establishes Lyell's credentials as an important geological theorist and introduced the doctrine of uniformitarianism.

The central argument in Principles is that "the present is the key to the past:" That geological remains from the distant past can, and should, be explained by reference to geological processes now in operation and thus directly observable.

Lyell's interpretation of geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time is also a central theme in the Principles, and is to be a powerful influence on the young Charles Darwin.

Lyell had asked Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, to search for erratic boulders on the survey voyage of the Beagle, and just before it set out, FitzRoy had given Darwin Volume 1 of the first edition of Lyell's Principles.

When the Beagle makes its first stop ashore at St. Jago, Darwin will find rock formations that seen "through Lyell's eyes" will give him a revolutionary insight into the geological history of the island, an insight he is to apply throughout his travels.

Lyell, who supports himself by writing books about his scientific work, had come from a prosperous family, worked briefly as a lawyer in the 1820s, and held the post of Professor of Geology at King's College London in the 1830s, but from 1830 onward, his books are to provide both a comfortable living and growing fame.