Elements of Geology.

LYELL, Charles.

Item Number: 96552

London: John Murray, 1838.

First edition of the companion volume to Lyell’s pioneering work, Principles of Geology. Octavo, elegantly bound in full morocco by Bayntun-Riviere with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments, green morocco spine label, gilt ruling to the spine, front and real panels, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Engraved frontispiece in color of an ideal section of the earth’s crust explaining the theory of the contemporaneous origin of the four great classes of rocks with tissue guard, engraved illustrations throughout the text. With the original paper spine label bound in at rear. From the library of Johnathan M. Himmelhoch, Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the Universtiy of Pittsburgh, with his library imprint to the dedication page. In fine condition.

Scottish geologist Charles Lyell is best known for his Principles of Geology, which presented uniformitarianism–the idea that the Earth was shaped by the same scientific processes still in operation today–to the broad general public. A close friend of Charles Darwin, Lyell contributed significantly to Darwin's thinking on the processes involved in evolution and assisted in the arranging the publication of the simultaneous publication in 1858 of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection. "Originally intended as a supplement to the Principles, this formed an independent practical guide to the science of geology" (Summerhayes, 12).