Over the past five years, the University of Edinburgh has undertaken a transformative programme to catalogue, preserve, and enhance access to the Charles Lyell Collection. This final blog marks a key milestone—sharing outcomes, showcasing the new catalogue and website, and offering tips for using this vast resource, while also pointing ahead to future discoveries.

Lyell in 1842 as featured in ‘Lyell in America : transatlantic geology, 1841-1853’ by Leonard G. Wilson, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Our research has not been able to confirm the whereabouts of the original image.

In The Antiquity of Man, Lyell investigated the meaning of prehistoric flint implements, using them to authenticate ground-breaking arguments about humanity’s deep past. We’ve used our own set of tools – archival methods, state-of-the-art digitisation equipment and digital infrastructure – to unlock the full scope of Lyell’s legacy.

AI has offered some useful and interesting tools. Transkribus provided a scaffold for students learning to decipher Lyell’s handwriting, while ChatGPT has at times supported the non-scientist Archivists. In fact, the title of this blog, ‘Happy Notebooking,’ originated from an AI-generated parting, during an early discussion about the Lyell collection. Just as flint tools helped Lyell uncover ancient stories, our digital tools have helped us illuminate his world—transforming his notebooks, correspondence, and discoveries into something accessible for future generations.

The archive catalogue

A basic overview, by provenance, of the composition of the Lyell archive collection.

Charles Lyell is never referred to as an Archivist, but his collection serves as both evidence and documentation of the history of the Earth, and, of his role as its information manager. He’s assisted in this work by his team – George Hall, wife Mary Lyell, and Arabella Buckley, maybe even other people we’ve not identified yet. For our project, the decision was taken to respect the provenance of the different accessions of Lyell material held at the University, but, the history of information management is writ large across the collection, and we’ve also used the original organisation created by Lyell and his team, to arrange series.

Our work to develop a comprehensive online catalogue has:

• Expanded the list of correspondents from broad alphabetical categories to over 400 named individuals, providing a clearer picture of Lyell’s extensive network
• Worked to catalogue the Scientific notebooks. This work will be ongoing, with skilled volunteers meticulously adding details for each one
• Mapped the records related to Lyell’s Lectures, uncovering how these early materials, which also illustrate the development of his science communication skills, criss-crossed the Atlantic
• Revealed Lyell’s practice of recording his reading and thoughts in the Index notebooks, and, confirmed the connections with the recently rediscovered Offprints held at the University, and which had previously been challenging to interpret
• Highlighted Lyell’s writing process, through the annotated copies of his books, original manuscript notes, edits, and the publishing activities recorded in the notebooks
• Strengthened the understanding of the connections between Lyell’s geological specimens – rocks, minerals, and shells – and the archive, establishing a clearer provenance for many, with evidence of Lyell’s direct involvement in their acquisition.

Reflecting back, we can confirm we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of deciphering Lyell’s handwriting! Along the way, we’ve encountered the complexities of outdated scientific terminology, historical – and indeed multiple place names across Europe, the UK, and America – as well as Lyell’s spelling. Lyell is actively listening to what other people are saying, which sometimes leads to misspelling. Please forgive any of our own mistakes you might come across; and don’t hesitate to contact us if we can make corrections.

A big thank you to all the volunteers, who have worked with us over the last 5 years, but especially to Drew Coleman and Beverly Gordon – who have worked diligently since 2023 to add detail to the notebooks, allowing us to work to fulfill our aim of a consistent, rich, level of detail for all 297. We’re particularly proud to have added several women – Mary Anning and Jeanne Villepreux-Power amongst them – to our catalogue, helping highlight their contributions to Lyell’s work.

The Lyell Website: A Digital Gateway to His Legacy

All of this work has contributed to a new website designed to make Lyell’s legacy more accessible to the global audience it truly deserves. The website is organised around Lyell’s principal tools; his archival papers – an inclusive term reflecting the breadth of the material held within – as well as the notebooks, Offprints, and specimens.

Lyell’s books can be a useful starting point for any research, as the archive ultimately informs his published works. In addition to providing links to Lyell’s books published by John Murray online, we are proud to make available the late Stuart Baldwin’s comprehensive bibliography. Do make sure to access this, as it provides an excellent start to understanding the extent of Lyell’s output. Other key sources are Life Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell by Katharine Lyell – also available via on the website – and the works of Leonard G. Wilson.

Of particular note on the website are the images of Lyell’s treasured 297 notebooks, which document his observations from 1818, on a European tour with his family, through to November 1874, just three months before his death. You can access IIIF-compliant images of these notebooks via the “Search the Notebooks” button.

The website offers users an easy way to navigate through the vast collection of materials, creating an interactive experience that aims to preserve and expand upon the legacy of one of the most influential Geologists in history.

The future –  a new blog

Our work has revealed the depths of Lyell’s archive, but there’s more still to be explored. Some series of correspondence and a selection of specimens held at the Cockburn Museum have been photographed, providing exciting opportunities for further research. The voluminous Offprints have been box listed only, but its a start. The research potential is immense – many of the geological features Lyell studied are now important heritage and tourism sites. If you live near one, it’s likely that Lyell visited (and possibly documented it more than once!). His advocacy for using physical collections and his involvement in nineteenth century museum development also merit further study.

Felicity at the official opening of the project exhibition, taken by photographer Neil Hanna 07702246823

Finally, we can introduce you to Felicity Mackenzie, the University of Edinburgh’s newest Lyell enthusiast. Felicity’s PhD will explore Lyell’s legacy, and we’re excited to pass the baton to someone so passionate. Her research promises to utilise the archive to reassess and deepen our understanding of Lyell’s lasting impact. In fact, Felicity is continuing with her own Through Lyell’s Eyes blog – please do subscribe to keep on this epic journey!

The Sir Charles Lyell Project has technically finished, and our final blogs will offer some guidance for access and future use – BUT – we just want to share a really special update! During the project, further acquisitions were made, including two albums which were collated by Lyell’s family but since sold and held in private hands. Through the brilliant work of the Cultural Heritage Digitisation Service (CHDS) these albums are now available digitally for this first time. Please check out the CHDS blog to find out about the technical aspects of this work;

Getting to Grips with Goobi on the Lyell Albums

For some historical context and musings on their content, read on! 

How easy do you find accessing your own papers and records? Can you find things immediately, or, does it take some searching through drawers and cupboards to find the information you need? How many times a day do you search through your digital files? Now imagine those actions, applied to a collection of scientific research, amassed during the 19th century, a time of seismic change in how people viewed and understood the world – and – imagine those actions performed by a number of people, over the span of 100 years.

We are of course talking about Charles Lyell’s comprehensive archive and published works – held at the University. With acquisitions dating 1927, 2019 and 2020, the archive bears evidence of his organisation, right from the start of his career. His travel journal dated Summer 1818 documenting his Grand Tour has title sections, allowing us to trace his itinerary, but pages are unnumbered, and there are no indexes – access tools that he’d later employ. After attending Oxford University, and training as a lawyer, his approach to his work was always to gather testimony and evidence to make a conclusive case. In his quest to codify geology, and in writing the Victorian textbook of its age, Principles of Geology (Murray, 1st edition 1830 – 12th edition 1875), he collected masses of data, and, he needed to access it – on more than one occasion to prove the authenticity of his research. Indeed, we know that page numbering was a task that he allocated time to, as was numbering his specimens. Lyell’s own organisation is demonstrable, but what happens when multiple people are involved, perhaps different homes, or stores, and with a timeframe of over 100 years? How much impact do people and time have on an archive?

Following the acquisitions of Lyell records in 2019- 20, the University purchased more, including two albums compiled by Leonard Lyell, Lyell’s nephew, containing letters sent to Lyell and others in the family including his wife Mary Horner Lyell, father Charles Lyell (1767–1849), father-in-law Leonard Horner (1785-1864), and brother Francis Horner (1778-1817). In both albums, most of the letters are accompanied by a facing photograph or portrait print of the letter’s author. What is clear is that for the letters sent to Charles Lyell at least, the contents of these albums were originally part of his correspondence – we can spot the same summaries, written on the letter of envelope, meaning these letters were part of his original A-Z series – now catalogued in two tranches 1927 and 2020 . By purchasing these albums, and in facilitating access to them, we are further extending the scope of Lyell’s network of ‘able investigators’.

It is apparent from Lyell’s archive, that Lyell’s family surrounded and supported him in his work. Lyell had ten siblings, Mary had six sisters, one of whom married Lyell’s brother. The family was close, sharing interests, travels and correspondence. It’s gratifying then, to see them included in these albums, which serve to show Lyell at the heart of an educated, inquisitive and connected family.

Despite being one of the figure heads in 19th century science, Lyell’s archive reveals he did not work alone. His wife Mary created a number of the indexes in the notebooks – and there is admin support from his original clerk, George Hall (fl 1828-1843), and Arabella Buckley (1840-1929), his secretary from 1863. Their organisation has greatly assisted our progress in describing, and linking back up, the collection. We’ve been able to utilise their ways of working for example, in cataloguing – recreating an almost entire A-Z series of voluminous correspondence, and using their summaries of each letter, found either on the reverse, or on the envelope – and the original page numbering has supported digitisation.

Understanding this work is greatly enhanced by these albums, which are now catalogued, reference Coll-1997 photographed and available digitally here and here, ensuring more work can continue.

The University has actively collected books, objects, instruments and art since its foundation and continues to invest to this day in ensuring that our collections are actively and responsibly developed, reflecting the University’s teaching and research needs, as well as our collections’ strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, we are also adding to Scotland’s collective cultural heritage, building a collection for the nation. In an average year, the librarians, archivists and curators of Heritage Collections acquire hundreds of pieces of cultural heritage and are responsible for the development of the University’s collections. If you would like to find out more,take a look at our editions of ‘Recollect’, which you can pick up for free on the 6th floor Main Library, George Square, or you can view copies online. 

As part of our goal to ‘create a complete, comprehensive, and enhanced online catalogue,’ one series emerged as particularly in need of attention: ‘Lectures.’ Lyell Intern Claire Bottoms took on the challenge of untangling the numerous, often complex manuscripts, working to bring clarity and accessibility to this crucial part of Lyell’s archive.

Hello, I’m Claire, an intern who has been working on the Charles Lyell Collection offprints over the last 7 months. As part of our efforts cataloguing the collection this Summer, we were able to extend our work to one final element that needed attention: Lyell’s series of lectures, delivered in the UK and the US between 1832-1853.

Charles Lyell’s 20-year career as a lecturer started with two years (1832-1833) in London at King’s College London and at the Royal Institution; and extended throughout his travels in the US (1841-1853), where he presented across New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Records of these lectures exist as part of his archive, gifted to the University by his family in 1927, with additional series coming in recent acquisitions in 2020. Historic cataloguing of this series has been limited to them being simply labelled as ‘Lyell Lectures’, but as we began to sort through them, it was evident that they were early in date, and documented his rewrites and learning. “He revised, rewrote and rethought each lecture before it was delivered”, observed Leonard Wilson in his book Lyell in America (p372). We established that they would really benefit from some serious re-ordering, additional context and detail.

Two printed Lecture cards, produced for the Lowell Lectures at Boston October – November 1845, Coll-203/B14/9.

Given that there are already some sources on Lyell’s lectures, which when pulled together, promised to a comprehensive overview of his work, and, that there was some apparent order of folders within boxes, as well as historic typed lists (compiled by Lyell scholar Martin Rudwick), we embarked on the task of compiling a timeline and order of events to make better sense of these records. We were also able to gather information from a variety of resources: online newspaper records, print resources, previous archival notes, as well as taking a close look at the records themselves, including lecture cards which detailed the contents, venues and topics of Lyell’s lectures. With time and effort, we were able to map across to the archives Lyell and his team had preserved (clerk George Hall, Mary Lyell and Arabella Buckley), his own collection of manuscripts, lecture notes and drafts, newspaper cuttings and correspondence.

A very useful table by Robert H Dott, which maps out the contents of Lyell’s lectures, 1832 through to 1852

Two key sources we used were written in the 1990s, one being Leonard Wilson’s Lyell in America (1998), which is only available in print, and no longer available to buy; luckily there is a copy at the University Library. We also used Robert H. Dott’s article ‘Charles Lyells debt to North America: his lectures and travels from 1841 to 1853‘ published by The Geological Society of London, 1998. In light of this, the construction of a new and updated timeline brought together information that was otherwise scattered and tricky to access – into a cohesive reference for Lyell’s lecture history.

Long notes, on blue paper, and short notes on white, prepared for Boston Lecture on Erratic Blocks, of Berkshire Massachusetts, 16 November 1852, reference Coll-203/B14/15.

Lyell appeared to work on, and organise his lecture notes, using a system of “long notes” (extended pieces of prose), and “short notes” (smaller booklets in numbered shorthand of the same content, often accompanied by timings and lists of illustrations). It is fascinating to see this process of writing, revising and refining his work, which allowed Lyell to hone his scientific ideas and communication skills; portions of these notes appear to make their way into Lyell’s later published works. Published sources describe Lyell as having been initially reluctant to teach and lecture, instead being eager to devote his time to his emerging writing career. The lecture series are credited with providing him with both the additional income, and the scientific recognition to do this. Notably, though Lyell was once a nervous public speaker (sources recount him dropping his notes once during his first lecture), this process likely helped develop a more polished and accessible approach.

Illustrations as delivered at the Lowell Lectures, Boston, 19 October 1852 – 26 November 1852, reference Coll-203/B14/15.

Original newspaper wrapping enclosing Lecture 5 Prose notes, from The Express, dated 19 March 1850, reference Coll-203/B14/12.

The archival records go beyond recording Lyell’s words, they also contain diagrams outlining Lyell’s plans for his lecture layouts, referencing the illustrations intended to support his presentations. It is apparent he travelled with these illustrations, as well as commissioning new ones on his way – sadly they’ve not survived, most likely victims of steamship voyages! Lyell’s lectures are also accompanied with older notes, articles and pieces of research that he brought together to use as material in his lectures. In many cases, all of these associated records are enclosed in newspaper wrappings. These wrappings added an unexpected additional layer of archival interest, and have been helpful in identifying the date, location and corresponding lecture.

Mapping Lyell’s selection of lecture materials has been a challenging changing process, with new pieces of information, resurfacing parts of the collection, and decisions regarding how to order the series emerging at every turn of the page! Yet, it has been incredibly fascinating and rewarding to see it all come together under a new timeline we are proud to have compiled and used to make sense of these folders, no longer only detailed as just ‘Lyell’s Lectures’.

Thank you, Claire, for transforming how Lyell’s ‘Lectures’ are presented in the catalogue. While still respecting the original acquisition details and their division into two sections, the information is now far more detailed. It reveals draft prose that Lyell would later incorporate into Principles, and, with the material now organized by lecture location, it’s much easier to trace how Lyell criss-crossed the Atlantic. Check out the details in sections Coll-203/8 and Coll-203/B14.

Using funding awarded by the Institute of Sedimentologists, Lizzie Freestone worked during the Summer of 2024 as the Charles Lyell Web Development Intern. Read on to learn all about her work, that combined metadata with Neolithic tools, and spanned teams from Digital Libraries, archives and museums, and included a particularly troublesome team member – Vernon!

Lizzie, with Dr. Gillian McCay of the Cockburn Geological Museum,

I started as the Charles Lyell Digital Collections Intern on the 3^rd of June 2024. The goal was to develop processes so that specimens from the Charles Lyell collection, part of the Cockburn Geological Museum, could be more easily transferred into Vernon, the University’s collection management system for museum holdings. Once in Vernon, the specimen records can be automatically fed through to a more public-facing website, Collections.Ed; however, there are many significant steps required to get the data to that stage. Using processes developed by my line manager, Senior Systems Architect Scott Renton, my job was to connect that specimen data with high quality photographs of specimens taken by the University’s Cultural Heritage Digitisation Service, which are hosted separately on the University’s image hosting website, LUNA. Linking the specimen data to the images means that we could then have both the data and the associated images feed through to the public website.

I began working on the images collection of the Cockburn Museum, which include around 200 teaching slides with a wide range of images including a series about an expedition to Spitsbergen, Svalbard; portraits of famous geologists; and photos of the natural landscape of Edinburgh, including Arthur’s Seat and the surroundings of Kings Buildings. Under Scott’s guidance, I learned how to run XML imports into Vernon. Working on batches of twenty or so records, I started getting to grips with the software and how it worked. Around this time, I also met with  Gillian McCay, Curator of the Cockburn Geological Museum, who showed me the vast array of physical specimens the museum holds and explained the challenges of trying to get them into digital format. The Lyell specimens represent a complex set of records, reflecting their custodial history of nearly 100 years, so to get my eye in for more specifically geological specimens, I worked on drawers from the Currie collection, restructuring the spreadsheets and configuring Vernon to accept their contents. The Lyell specimens’ records have very long, complex descriptions – including research references, context, and loans – which would need to be broken down into distinct fields before they could go into Vernon. I spent a significant amount of time talking to Gillian and Pamela McIntyre, Strategic Projects Archivist on the Lyell project, about their thoughts on best ways to break up the description information, acceptable under Vernon’s demands.

Tear drop shaped flint tool. Dark grey brown colour, with some light grey to cream areas. The surface is covered by concoidal fractures, with little to no rind remaining. One glued label reading ‘ Sir C. Lyell’.

Rain marks in fine grained red sediment. One label attached to the sample reads ‘Rainmarks, Kentville’. One specimen has on its reverse a date, scratched into the mud, likely when still soft is written ‘July 21 1849’.

I found it really rewarding to work on specimens with such a long history and to get to talk so much with Scott, Gillian and Pamela, who all went above and beyond to answer my questions and concerns as they arose and to give me new ways to think about things. Learning how to use Vernon over the course of the summer was also really satisfying, as I went from zero knowledge to being able to use some of its most complicated functions, thanks to Scott’s explanations and a lot of practice. I also really enjoyed the opportunity to work as part of an IT development team and to have the opportunity to develop my technical skills. I was proficient in using Excel before, but had a minimal background in computer science. I now feel much more confident in learning how to apply new tools and to use programming to achieve a goal. Programming is now something I’m interested in doing more of going forward.

In all, I processed around 500 specimen records, of which around 150 were part of the Lyell collection. My work has developed processes for importing both new Currie and Lyell specimen records into Vernon including spreadsheet templates, setting up Vernon configurations, and created detailed guidance on to how to use them (including on how to set up and use new templates if needed). This means that getting further geological specimen records out of the basic excel spreadsheet stage, and into Vernon is much easier, which will make them more stable and more widely accessible. I also got to work on the Collections.Ed website, adding images and changing the ways some metadata was displayed, making the collections pages more visually appealing and navigable. It will take some additional technical work to get these specimens onto the new Lyell website (more details on that to come!) – for that, the team are using IIIF to link data and images – but it’s great to know that my work will support that next stage.

This internship has been a very rewarding experience, and I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to the digital preservation of these historically significant geology specimens. I’m looking forward to seeing how the digital collection grows over time!

Thank you so much Lizzie, Scott, Gillian – and Vernon! And thank you to the Institute of Sedimentologists – this funding has allowed us to fill a knowledge gap which will be of huge support to staff going forward – and has provided Lizzie with great work experience in a field outwith her main degree. This internship completes the final allocation of all the funding secured by the Lyell Project, with special thanks to David McClay, Philanthropy Manager, Library and University Collections, who has been its champion since the outset. As the project nears the final stages, forthcoming blogs will focus on access, discovery and legacy. 

Thank you to guest blogger, Andrea Edwards, who shares her experience of spending the ‘summer’ working on the Charles Lyell correspondence…

Andrea at work, studying Lyell’s American correspondence, in the Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh.

Hi! My name is Andrea Edwards. I am an undergraduate student at the University of Wyoming (UW), majoring in History and Environmental Studies, and minoring in Museum Studies. I travelled to Scotland to do a month-long internship, funded my university’s ‘UW in Scotland’ program. On securing funding, I had to find myself a placement, and I contacted Heritage Collections staff at the University of Edinburgh, and agreed a placement based with the Centre for Research Collections (CRC) in order to learn about and gain experience in UK archives.

During my time there, I learned a lot about how archivists work in the UK, which combined with my knowledge and experience of collections management in the US, really extended my understanding. We talked about the current state of the heritage sector, discussing topics such as budgeting, colonial legacies, the climate crisis, and changes in best practice. It was fascinating to see how the staff at Heritage Collections are dealing with these global issues, compared to the US.  I was able to meet and work with lots of amazing people, specifically my supervisor Pamela McIntyre, archivist extraordinaire. I also visited many other heritage organizations, such as the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh archives and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, to learn about they manage their collections.

Start of a list of shells, found on the coast of Massachusetts, and identical with shells found on the European Atlantic Coasts, observed by AA Gould 1842, and sent to Lyell

My main project during my time in Scotland was cataloging Charles Lyell’s American correspondence. Charles Lyell travelled extensively throughout the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, in order to conduct his research. Lyell also visited North America, 4 times, between 1841-1853. During those trips, Lyell made several connections with prominent American scientists and politicians, and continued to stay in touch with many over the years, generating quite a bit of correspondence.

The recent revision of the Lyell collection based at the University of Edinburgh, has identified much more correspondence from American born or based correspondents than perhaps previously has been understood. A lot of this has come from the increase in names ‘agents’ (the writers of the letters) being identified, and extended from 40 to 308; as well as extended by an additional tranche of records coming to the University in 2020. The purpose of my project was to add more detail to the catalogue for Lyell’s American correspondence. I was assigned 19 folders, and went through each, counting the number of letters and making notes of significant people, places, or subjects mentioned in each individual letter, allowing me to create a comprehensive scope and content on each file. I was able to catalogue 93 individual letters, with dates ranging from 1841-1875.

Letter from Ticknor, to Lyell, written at Boston, 23 January 1849.

Through spending time with these records, I got to understand the extent of Lyell’s personal and professional network abroad. Lyell corresponded with people that headed American society: politicians, doctors, university professors, and naturalists. Some characters that he corresponded with include naturalist and conchologist Augustus Addison Gould, and Charles Thomas Jackson, a New England physician and scientist, with a reputation of accusing others of claiming his discoveries. His correspondence with Lyell perhaps confirms Lyell’s position as an ‘authenticator of fact’. Twenty letters to Lyell from George Ticknor, an academic and Hispanist, document his feelings about the Mexican American War, his gossipy tone revealing the friendship between them. William C. Redfield, a meteorologist who gets very excited about fossil fish— content which now flags up another potential topic of investigation in the Cockburn Geological Museum! The correspondence creates a mosaic not only of Lyell’s personal relations, but of the United States’ fledgling academic community, a very tight knit community where everyone writes for the Benjamin Silliman’s journal, is related to a Boston Brahmin family, and knew and extensively talked about each other— the work of Louis Agassiz being regularly mentioned throughout.

This years ‘summer’ backlit Glencoe’s amazing geology, especially for Andrea….

Lyell travelled throughout this life. I felt encouraged by him to explore Scotland, and it lived up to every expectation. I spent most of my time in Edinburgh, exploring all of its nooks and crannies, and absolutely fell in love with the city. It has such a charming and intimate atmosphere, and despite this being my first solo trip, it felt like a home away from home. I took the time to visit Glasgow, Inverness, and bits of the Highlands, all of which were amazing places that I would love to visit again. I loved the public transportation! Throughout my travels, I loved how climate conscious Scotland is, and I was impressed with their mindfulness about waste and their carbon footprint. It was especially interesting how Heritage Collections strive to apply this thinking to their work.

Everyone I met was so nice and welcoming. Everything was so beautiful, from the winding medieval streets of Edinburgh to the lush green peaks of Glencoe. I will always treasure my time spent there. But it’s also gratifying to know that I’ve also made an impression on Scotland. Due to the work that I have done, Lyell’s American correspondence has been enriched— taking their detail from a scant skeleton entry, to exact dates, extent, content and related agents. This had made this special subset of study more accessible to researchers. I wish them luck on their journey.

We also want to express our gratitude to the University of Wyoming for supporting Andrea’s cross-cultural internship, which has enhanced our understanding of Lyell’s global connections. A special thank you to our colleagues at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and all the staff at Heritage Collections for their warm welcome and mentorship, which made Andrea’s experience both educational and memorable. But, most of all, thank you for all your efforts Andrea.

Claire and Harriet proudly display the newly catalogued Lyell’s loose Offprint collection.

Hello, we are interns Claire and Harriet, who have now been working for 5 months on Charles Lyell’s Offprint collection held by Heritage Collections. In our first blog post, we covered how our work on these offprints was starting to reveal the extensive network of researchers and topics that Lyell was collecting and reading about. And we’re now finished! 

Within this collection, we have worked through all sorts of sizes and types of Offprints, from larger folios (slightly bigger than A4), the smaller Offprints (roughly A5 size), as well as oversized, some miscellaneous items, as well as offprints of Lyell’s own published works. To date, we have now catalogued 1291 separate offprints and organised them into 32 boxes! Many have needed alphabetical reordering, where they have been previously misplaced or incorrectly labelled. It was especially satisfying to see this final re-shuffling and re-labelling of these boxes, now all under our new catalogued order.

But, we were not quite done! True to every other archive listing project (ever), we still had 22 bound volumes to tackle! Shelved along with other unaccessioned material, and originally part of the Geology Library, these volumes are embossed with the titles ‘Geological Tracts’ a somewhat vague title, that was assumed to point to various other organisations or societies. Some had titles, and numbers embossed on the outside, others were ‘unknown’, their place in the series unrecorded. In fact, these 22 volumes contain annotations by Lyell, and are a unique set, recording his reading.   

Lyell’s ‘Geological Tracts’

“Geological tracts Unknown Vol. 2”, “Vol. 5”, and ‘Vol. 7”, feature journal articles and book extracts discussing Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, while volumes “Geological Tracts Vol. 3 Antiquity of Man”, “Vol. 5”, and “Vol. 11”, feature offprints on flint implements and geology in France. Each volume brings together as many as 33 different authors, all originating from different journals, with their own published volume numbers, page numbers – as well as Lyell’s own handwritten notes.

Papers about the Human species, their origin, their place within nature, and the different phases of human evolution within the geological/archaeological record, appear throughout, for example, Rolleston’s “Distinctive Character of brain of Man and of Anthropomorphic Apes” (Vol 2, 17) and Babbage’s (1859) “Chalk on human implements mixed with bones of extinct animals” (Vol 3, 16). 

The bound volumes labelled “Miscellaneous” include assorted articles on geological formations, zoology, submergence, glaciation, plants, and the deep-sea from locations all over including: the Americas, India, Europe, Islands, with a higher proportion on England, Wales, and Scotland. 

‘Tracts’ was a word that we had seen before – it had cropped up several times whilst cataloguing the other separate offprints, expressed in handwritten notes on their front covers. From this we have inferred that ‘Tracts’ refer to these bound volumes. We have also become familiar with the authors and contributors and their topics of interest, and recognised they were reappearing in these bound volumes, and that Lyell appears to collate the topics that he was most interested in. It has been incredibly rewarding to see the re-emerging connections, made possible from our work over the previous months, making more sense in these final bound volume offprints.  

Finally, we have applied our deep understanding of Lyell’s Offprints, to his ‘Index Notebooks’.

At the end of the series of Lyell’s Notebooks, there is a set of 16 index notebooks – but that title isn’t as clear as it seems. Our work has explored the relationship between these indexes, and Lyell’s reading, and it appears 13 of these notebooks are the key to unlocking the bound ‘Geological Tracts’. There are 2 General Indexes which relate to a series of 11 indexes, filled with Lyell’s reading, research, and correspondence notes. The second General Index (currently A5/12) lists alphabetically the names and papers of key researchers Lyell made notes on. This index lists where Lyell’s notes can be found inside both the Tracts and the series of 11 notebooks.  

Aided by our comprehensive lists, we were able to put our theories as to how these records connect, to the test. For example, Lyell’s notes on Agassiz’s ‘Distribution of Animals’ is listed as Index 1.122 and Tracts 1.6. Therefore, these notes can be found in index book 1 (A5/15), page 122, and the paper itself can be found in Geological Tracts 1 entry 5 (Geological Society Vol. 1. 1850-1855). Because of this, we were able to correctly identify 2 volumes marked ‘unknown’, as ‘Geological Tracts‘ 6 and 12. We can piece together the whole set, and, recreate their original order – including some that are dated earlier, and may be their prototype! 

Harriet and Claire’s internship has been funded by the Friends of the University Library – which is apt, given the relationship between Lyell’s archive, and, the Offprints, that technically form part of the book collections. The task of listing the voluminous Offprints must at times, felt never ending – and yet, the application of their knowledge, has meant we can now properly catalogue a crucial set of archival indexes, not to mention, extending Lyell’s network by several 100 people! Adding the detail of Lyell’s ‘reading’ to his other tools – of observation, collecting specimens, and correspondence- is a crucial part of the story of his contribution to how we understand the world today. Thank you both for your amazing efforts! 

Will Adams completed his MA Archaeology dissertation at the University of Edinburgh Summer 2023 looking at Lyell’s archaeological specimens – achieving an impressive 78% and winning an award to boot! Read on to find out more about his spectacular findings…

Scientific Notebook 266 page 14

Many specimens from Charles Lyell’s private collection were donated to the University of Edinburgh in 1927 and came directly from his family home and birthplace of Kinnordy House. In the very last Scientific Notebook, number 266, dated 17 July-23 November 1874, Lyell, in advancing age, is driven to Kinnordy to search “in vain in the Charter Room for Colonel Imrie rock specimens of N. Esk”.

This indicates that any finding aids to access what must have been a voluminous personal collection, even during Lyell’s lifetime, were problematic. No detailed documentation about the specimens at the time of the gift in 1927 appears to have survived, and the absolute authentication as having been part of Lyell’s specimen collection, is reliant on the existence of original labels. Subsequent use by staff of the University also had an impact on the specimens – a split occurred in the collection, with specimens now held by both the Cockburn Geological Museum and the Vere Gordon Childe Collection.

This paper is a study of the archaeological flint tool, VGC1363, held in the Vere Gordon Childe Collection and shows how it can be irrefutably reunited with Lyell through studying the object alongside his printed publications and recently acquired notebooks. This work highlights how an interdisciplinary approach utilising archive, library and museum evidence is essential for provenance research in scientific collections.

Figure 1. Illustration by Adams (2023) showing a match of specimen EUCM.0001.2022 with a figure in Lyell’s The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863) realised by Dr Gillian McCay, Curator of the Cockburn Geological Museum

Using Lyell’s books as source material, Gillian McCay, Curator of the Cockburn Museum had confirmed that specimen reference EUCM.0001.2022, in Figure 1, had been ‘figured’ and included as an illustration in Lyell’s last major work, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), which had huge public success with almost all of the 4000 copies sold in its first week of publication (Cohen, 1999, 90).

Looking at the rest of the collection, I was intrigued to find out if I could reveal any more, and was particularly interested in a set of flint hand axes in a draw labelled “Misc. French Flints” in the Vere Gordon Childe Collection, that have ‘Sir C Lyell’ written directly on them or on the object label.

VGC1363: An indication of Lyell

Collecting evidence was critical for Lyell – surely more specimens could be found and identified, using his books? From developments in the human antiquity debate by Joseph Prestwich and John Evans in 1859, Lyell conducted his own research in the Somme Valley to provide an authoritative judgement.

Figure 2. Page 118 Antiquity of Man

Figure 2 shows page 118 of Lyell’s Antiquity. Studying this page carefully and using my knowledge of archaeological illustration I could see that this flint tool displayed in Lyell’s “Fig 14” has been broken in half from the “b” and “c” line in the original illustration and the section shown at “d”. Out of all the miscellaneous French flints in this draw, I could now narrow down my search to broken flint tools to provide a positive match.

Figure 3. Photograph by Adams (2023) of a drawer in the Vere Gordon Childe Collection labelled as “…Misc. French Flints” with specimen VGC1363 highlighted by a red circle

The flint tool circled in Figure 3 is broken in half, making it a candidate. It is fortunate to retain its label which reads “Sir C. Lyell, Menchecourt bed – ‘e’, March 1861” this connects it to Lyell. The connection is further supported by Lyell’s description of “Fig.14”  as being a flint knife from Menchecourt (Lyell, 1863, 118).

Figure 4(a): Illustration by Adams (2023) comparing VGC1363 with “Fig.14.” through correspondence points; and on the righthand side Figure 4(b): Illustration by Adams (2023) showing a match of the specimen of Cyrena (Corbicula) fluminalis, EUCM.0222.2023, from Erith, Kent to illustration “d” in “Fig.17” of …Antiquity of Man (1863)

Furthermore, the illustration in Figure 4(a) shows how the object matches morphologically to Lyell’s “Fig. 14.”, through the transverse section and from the front view of the object.

This is an important object because of its context of being found “below the sand containing Cyrena fluminalis, Menchecourt, Abbeville” (Lyell, 1863, 124). Later in the book, Lyell goes on to explain that Cyrena (Corbicula) fluminalis is now an extinct species of freshwater shell in modern Europe, suggesting that the presence of a human modified flint tool in a stratigraphic layer below this shell supports human antiquity (Lyell, 1863, 124).

In Figure 4(b) a specimen of Cyrena (Corbicula) fluminalis held in the Cockburn Geological Museum collection appears to match the illustration and place name description of “Erith, Kent” typed in the extant label, in illustration “d” in “Fig.17.” of Antiquity of Man (Lyell, 1863, 124).

Turning away from the source material of books, and object labels – I was also able to consult Lyell’s rich archive, including the 294 notebooks. Knowing the time frame, and location I was able to establish that Lyell’s Notebook 245 records him being on site in Menchecourt in March 1861.

Figure 5. Figure 5: Edited photograph taken by Adams (2023) of Lyell’s notebook showing the flint knives place in the stratigraphy with a photograph of VGC1363 superimposed into the stratigraphy.

Figure 5 shows an edited version of Lyell’s stratigraphic drawing during his time there, showing flint knives found below a layer containing Cyrena (Corbicula) fluminalis. Lyell’s note at the top of the page 138 reads “Menchecourt. Two specimen of knives found below a marine bed with cyrena” which is the conclusive proof placing Lyell at the right place and time to uncover VGC1363.

Figure 6. Figure 6 The six archaeological specimens from University of Edinburgh conclusively connected to Charles Lyell. From top left to bottom right: EUCM.0001.2022; VGC1363; VGC1368; EUCM.0311.2009; VGC0860; VGC1366 (Adams, 2023)

Lyell’s specimens confirmed

Through my 4^th year MA Archaeology dissertation, I conclusively identified another five archaeological specimens in the University of Edinburgh’s collections, shown in Figure 6, as belonging to Charles Lyell, and, through archival research, was able to create detailed object biographies for each. Although there are more flint hand axes with Lyell’s name attached which have not yet received the same detailed analysis, the trends seen in the object labelling system of the six specimens are consistent with the others in the collection. This makes it highly likely that the ‘Sir C Lyell’ labelled hand-axes in the Cockburn and Vere Gordon Childe collections belonged to the private collection of Lyell. An interdisciplinary approach was essential for determining the provenance of all six of these specimens – I had to apply both my archaeological knowledge and skills as well as newly acquired archival skills such as palaeography to fully understand what I was seeing. Piecing together this information was further complicated, due to a lack of relationships created between the different collections. As I embark on my working career, I’ll definitely advocate for establishing relationships between archive, museum and library catalogue entries to avoid a loss of provenance and the dispersal of materials.

Thank you, Will, for all your efforts – you should take great satisfaction for your part in identifying and repatriating a set of ‘miscellaneous French flints’ as being crucial to Lyell and his role in the Antiquity of Man debate, from which all future users will benefit!

Further reading

Cohen, C. 1998. Charles Lyell and the evidences of the antiquity of man. Geological Society Publications 143, pp. 83-93.

Lyell, C. 1863. The Geological Evidence for the Antiquity of Man (3^rd Ed). London: John Murray.