This chapter traces the further development of Charles Lyell's research, where he explored the implications of his new and radically divergent view of geohistory. In the last of his essays for the Quarterly Review, Lyell used Scrope's new book on the extinct volcanoes of central France to introduce the British intellectual elite to his own perspective on geohistory and its wider implications for the “place of man in nature.” A visit to Auvergne enabled Lyell to confirm for himself what Scrope and the local Auvergnat naturalists had already inferred about the slow erosion of the topography and...

This chapter traces the further development of Charles Lyell's research, where he explored the implications of his new and radically divergent view of geohistory. In the last of his essays for the Quarterly Review, Lyell used Scrope's new book on the extinct volcanoes of central France to introduce the British intellectual elite to his own perspective on geohistory and its wider implications for the “place of man in nature.” A visit to Auvergne enabled Lyell to confirm for himself what Scrope and the local Auvergnat naturalists had already inferred about the slow erosion of the topography and the similarly slow turnover in the fauna, without any trace of a “diluvial” episode.