AGASSIZ (Louis). Study of glaciers. Neuchâtel, by the author, 1840. In-8° and an atlas in-folio, bound in half-chagrin with corners, gilt fillets, speckled edges (homogeneous 19th century bindings, reinforced hinges). First edition, complete with text and plates, of "the great work of the founder of glacial geology" (Horblit, One hundred Books famous in Science, no. 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 18 large plates (475 x 317 mm) drawn from life by Joseph Bettanier, 14 of which are covered with a lithographed and captioned serpente on linen paper superimposed on the corresponding plate to give the key. Some foxing, but a good copy. 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