AGASSIZ (Louis). Study of glaciers. Neuchâtel, by the author, 1840. In-8° and an atlas in-folio, bound in half basane, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets and cold-stamped fleurons, author and title gilt on spine, covers of text volume preserved (homogeneous later bindings, minor spotting to text volume, more marked on atlas with tears to headpieces and crushed upper corners). First edition, complete with text and plates, of "the great work of the founder of glacial geology" (Horblit, One hundred Books famous in Science, n°1). The atlas was lithographed by H. Nicollet in Neuchâtel. The text volume, published at the author's expense and on sale at Jent and Gassmann, booksellers in Solothurn, sets out the theory of glaciers: their formation, characteristics, movements and oscillations over time, based on observations of the main glaciers in the Alps. It also contains explanations of the plates in the atlas. The atlas, printed by H. Nicollet in Neuchâtel, contains a lithographed title illustrated with a vignette and 21 large plates (475 x 317 mm) (instead of the usual 18) drawn from life by Joseph Bettanier, 14 of which are covered with a lithographed and captioned peeling paper serpente superimposed on the corresponding plate to give the key. All mounted on mitre. Some foxing, most noticeable on plate 16. This copy includes 3 additional plates at the head of the atlas, engraved by H. Nicolet, whereas the other plates were engraved by Josph Bettanier. These three plates, free from foxing, show the Hôtel des Neuchâtelois on the sea of ice of the Lauter Aar and Finster Aar, another view of the Hôtel des Neuchâtelois and the Grimsel hospice. Louis Agassiz was born in Môtier, on the shores of Lake Morat in the canton of Fribourg. A protégé of Georges Cuvier and Alexander von Humboldt, he devoted himself to the natural sciences, particularly the study of glaciers in the Alps. Based on the work of Charpentier, he demonstrated the existence of a geological period to establish and popularise his theory of the Ice Age: it was not floods and other catastrophes that shaped vast areas of Europe, but layers of ice (En français dans le texte, no. 258). Perret, 0019 - Regards sur les Alpes 56 - Lonchamp 14b