igures, not least tioned Murc t ty or so years of er foxes, converting aeronauticallyco puffs of drifting feat, and sal agility needed to read times or play a erest in rocks and became ounding sness a titan of geologicalthinking.

    t and autive pamps itles like “Revolution  Bloodsed in a faintly lunatic-sounding conspiracy called “t,” in o s King George III in t as  in  ter. Parkinson co Australia before t lydropped. Adopting a more conservative approaco life, erest in geologyand became one of ty and tant geological text, Organic Remains of a Former orld, oday, udy of tion t knoo fame. In 1785, ory to ural ory museum in a raffle. ter Square, on Lever, rained collecting of natural  til1805,  and tion  quite as remarkable in cer but more influential t ton died and only seventy miles atis of  Scots were feckless drunks.

    As tern eentury gentlemen scientists, Lyell came from abackground of comfortable ellectual vigor. inction of being a leading auty on t Dante and on mosses.

    (Ortricium lyelli, ors to tryside  some time on, is named for erest in natural ory, but it Oxford, ion to geology.

    Buckland  of a cy. s, but  least as mucricities. icularly noted for a menagerieof  o roam to eat ion. Depending ons to Buckland’s  be served baked guinea pig, mice inbatter, roasted  Asian sea slug. Buckland o find meritin t ting. Almostinevitably, y on coprolites—fossilized feces—and ablemade entirely out of ion of specimens.

    Even wing serious science his manner w