James Hutton
Lyell's books had widepread influence, not least on the up and coming young geologist Charles Darwin who read them with enthusiasm during his voyage on the Beagle. William Whewell coined the term uniformitarianism to describe Lyell's version of the ideas. This was in contrast with catastrophism, the idea that the rocks recorded a series of catastrophes followed by repopulation by a new range of species. Over time there was a convergence between these views, but Lyell's description of the development of geological ideas led to a belief that uniformitarianism had triumphed.