*Robert Chambers (1802-1883) was a spiritualist who regularly communicated with spirits. As a result of his contacts, he wrote the first popular evolution book in all of Britain. Called Vestiges of Creation (1844), it was printed 15 years before *Charles Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species.

*Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Like *Charles Darwin, Lyell inherited great wealth and was able to spend his time theorizing. Lyell published his Principles of Geology in 1830-1833; and it became the basis for the modern theory of sedimentary strata,—even though 20th-century discoveries in radiodating, radiocarbon dating, missing strata, and overthrusts (older strata on top of more recent strata) have nullified the theory. In order to prove his theory, Lyell was quite willing to misstate the facts. He learned that Niagara Falls had eroded a seven-mile [11 km] channel from Queenston, Ontario, and that it was eroding at about 3 feet [1 m] a year. So Lyell conveniently changed that to one foot [.3 m] a year, which meant that the falls had been flowing for 35,000 years! But Lyell had not told the truth. Three-foot erosion a year, at its present rate of flow, would only take us back 7000 to 9000 years,—and it would be expected that, just after the Flood, the flow would, for a time, have greatly increased the erosion rate. Lyell was a close friend of Darwin, and urged him to write his book, Origin of the Species.

Source: Evolution Handbook