Work on The Principles of Geology is “interrupted,” and Charles Lyell investigates the nature and formation of loess deposits

Abstract

Charles Lyell's life work, the influential textbook and philosophical treatise The Principles of Geology, helped to shape the Victorian age. There were few diversions from the central task of the Principles of Geology in the course of the twelve editions. Perhaps the most significant and notable was the discovery and investigation of loess; a silty sediment, often of considerable thickness, and widely distributed in the Rhine valley. He made a significant contribution to loess studies and, with his father-in-law, Leonard Horner, explored the loess regions of the Rhine Valley. The loess period lasted roughly from 1830 to 1836, and he established the first paradigm theory for the formation of loess deposits from deposition in a lake or perhaps from slow-moving water. This held sway until displaced by the aeolian theory of F. von Richthofen.