Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet,
FRS (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a British lawyer and the foremost
geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of
Principles of Geology, which popularized
James Hutton's concepts of
uniformitarianism—the idea that the Earth was shaped by the same processes still in operation today.
Principles of Geology also challenged theories popularized by
Georges Cuvier, which were the most accepted and circulated ideas about geology in England at the time.