SAUSSURE, Horace Benedict de (1740-1799). Voyage Dans Les Alpes, prcds d'un essai Sur L'Histoire Naturelle des environs de Geneve. Neuchatel: Samuel Fouche, 1779; Geneva: Barde Manget, 1786; Neuchatel: Louis Fauche-Borel, 1796. 4 volumes, 4to (259 x 197 mm). 2 engraved folding maps, 2 folding tables, 22 engraved plates, numerous engraved vignettes. (Some slight pale marginal spotting.) Contemporary French half tan calf gilt, smooth spines gilt, red and green morocco lettering-pieces gilt (a few discreet spine repairs). FIRST EDITION, describing Saussure's forty years of alpine journeys and researches here grouped in three sections: his climbs through the Mont Blanc Massif, his journeys through the Mont Cenis Pass to the Italian and French peaks, and his numerous expeditions to the Valais, Piedmont and Savoy, St. Gotthard, and the Bernese Oberland. His studies of the geology and glaciology of the Alps were of great importance to the development of modern geology. He first climbed the glaciers of Chamonix at age 19 and, prior to his death at 59, crossed the Alps 14 times by 8 different routes. Saussure's work, according to Charles Mathews in Annals of Mont Blanc, is THE "FINEST OF ALPINE CLASSICS." Brunet V:150