Geological Sketches. Agassiz, Louis. Alps,Geology,Mountaineering

First edition. 8vo. pp. v, 311; port. frontis., woodcut illusts.; minor spotting, previous owners' inscription and bookplate, else very good in original cloth, slightly sunned on spine. Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) studied in several areas of science, but his enduring contributions were those in the study of glaciers. The first proponent of the idea that the earth had been subject to a past ice-age, Agassiz joined a succession of theorists, including H.-B. de Saussure, who regarded the glaciers of the Alps as special objects of study. In the late 1830s Agassiz made many visits to Alpine glaciers, and indeed for a short time he stayed in a specially constructed hut on one of the Aar glaciers so as to investigate glacial movement. His important Etudes sur les Glaciers (1840) represented the culmination of this period of his studies. The present work collects articles from the Atlantic Monthly, taken from Agassiz's lectures; they include 'Mountains and their origin', 'The Formation of glaciers', 'Internal structure and progression of glaciers', and 'External appearance of glaciers'.