‎SHALER, Nathaniel Southfate / DAVIS, William Morris:‎
‎Illustrations of the Earth’s Surface: Glaciers.‎

‎Boston, James R. Osgood and Company, 1881, in-Folio, 196 p. + 25 sepia photogr. plates with texts & tissue guards, (20 being of the Alps) including two double-page panoramas, exlibris Peter E. Obergfell, original green cloth, title gilt to frontcover and spine. Top-edge gilt. A fine copy.‎

Reference : 141355aaf

‎First edition. Shaler (1841-1906) was Professor of Palaeontology and Davis was a Lecturer on Geology at Harvard University. The work purports to be „a body of graphic illustration of glacial phenomena, the text... designedly subordinate...“ Its great value is as a record of glacial movement in the Alps over the last hundred years as seen through these fine photographs.This work has a strong Swiss connection as Shaler must have been a student or associate of the great J.L.R. Agassiz (born in Switz. 1807 - died in Cambridge, Mass. 1873) whose monumental „Etudes sur les Glaciers“ was published in Neuchâtel, 1840 and who went on to Havard University to teach. There he established the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859. Agassiz made Harvard a centre for Natural History instruction and research. He was an advisor to the U.S. Coast Survey, for which Shaler also worked. In 1863 he was instrumental in the establshment of the National Academy of Sciences. Not in Perret. Image disp.‎