SIR CHARLES LYELL was born at Kinnordy, Forfarshire, Scotland, November 14th, 1797. He took his degree at Oxford in 1819 and began practice at the bar, but from his boyhood he had had a strong leaning towards scientific research which drew him under the influence of Cuvier, Humboldt, and other great investigators, who were just beginning to rid science of the limitations imposed on it by the Middle Ages. Lyell’s researches in geology gave them effective support and made him one of the founders of geology as a true science. His works include “Principles of Geology,” 1830–1833; “Travels in North America,” 1845; “The Antiquity of Man,” 1863; and “The Student’s Elements of Geology,” 1871. He died at London, February 22d, 1875.