The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

(Tuis.) #1

Lyell published his ideas in three thick volumes, Principles of Geology:
Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface by
Reference to Causes Now in Operation. The work was aimed at a general
audience, which embraced it enthusiastically. A first print run of forty-
five hundred copies quickly sold out, and a second run of nine thousand
was ordered up. (In a letter to his fiancée, Lyell boasted that this
represented “at least 10 times” as many books as any other English

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