to foster indolence, and to blunt ty,” sniffed Lyell.

    Lyell’s  oversig  inconsiderable. o explain convincingly ain ranges  of coaccept Louis Agassiz’s idea of ice ages—“tion of termed it—and  t mammals “ fossiliferousbeds.” ed tion t animals and plants suffered sudden anniions, andbelieved t all tiles, fised since time. On all of timately be proved wrong.

    Yet it o overstate Lyell’s influence. t tions in Lyell’s lifetime and contained notions t so tietury. Darook a first edition e after “t merit of t it altered tone of one’s mind, and t,  partially t,  ion. It is a testament to trengt in tso abandon just a part of it to accommodate t tinctions, it nearlykilled t t is anoter.

    Meaning out to do, and not all of it  smoothly.

    From tset geologists tried to categorize rocks by t ten bitter disagreements about  te t became kno Devonian Controversy.

    t Roderick Murcly to te raged for years and greremely ed. “De la Becy dog,” Murce to a friend in a typical outburst.

    Some sense of trengter titlesof Martin J. S. Rud and somber account of t DevonianControversy. tlemanlyDebate” and “Unraveling t to “ttacked,” “Reproofs and Recriminations,” “ts ting a Provincial in t t tledin 1879  of coming up o beinserted betwo.

    Because tis active in tisin ty of Devon. Cambriancomes from t els ing elseo tains on tzerland.Permian recalls tains. ForCretaceous (from tin for “ced to a Belgian geologisthe perky name of J. J. d’Omalius d’halloy.

    Originally,