Icecapades

This chapter focuses on James David Forbes and Louis Agassiz, two glaciologists that fueled a passion for ice and snow that prominently figured in the public imagination. It looks into Agassiz's “Études sur les glaciers” and its accompanying atlas of thirty-two plates that stirred sublime awe and scientific curiosity. It also talks about how Forbes, in contrast to Agassiz, fashioned his “Travels Through the Alps of Savoy” in a format and style after Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's publication as a reference for both scientists and mountaineers. The chapter emphasizes how Forbes and Louis Agassiz's works divulge their infatuation with glaciers as a highly dynamic, volatile, and agentic environment. It also discloses Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz who assumed Agassiz's legacy after his death in December 1873 by publishing “Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence.”