Excerpt from The Anthropological Review, Vol. 4 On the first appearance of his Principles of Geology, Sir Charles (then Mr.) Lyell was accused by some reviewers of putting the cart before the horse - Of discussing the respective merits of an unimpaired and uniform series of changes, and a succession of catastrophes diminishing in intensity, before proceeding to a statement of facts showing the adequacy of existing causes to account for ancient geological phenomena. But the order adopted by Lyell was the best calculated to prepare the mind of the reader not only to appreciate, but to take an interest in, the mass of circumstantial evi dances, or verse cause, contained in that justly celebrated work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.