Ignaz (Ignace) Venetz (1788 — 1859) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

, and glaciologist; as one of the first scientists to recognize

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s as a major force in shaping the earth, he played a leading role in the foundation of

glaciology Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, clim ...

Biography

Venetz was of a family long settled in the

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

, where he worked as

cantonal The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the Federated state, member states of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. The nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the form of the first three confederate allies used to be referred to as the . Two important ...

engineer first for Valais and then for

Vaud Vaud ( ; , ), more formally Canton of Vaud, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of Subdivisions of the canton of Vaud, ten districts; its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat ...

. As cantonal engineer he directed the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to drain the ice-dammed lake that had formed following the volcanic winter of 1816 high in the Val de Bagnes; the ice dam failed catastrophically on 16 June 1818. He worked primarily in the

canton area of the western

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

. In 1821 he completed the first draft of his work "Mémoire sur les Variations de la température dans les Alpes de la Suisse", suggesting that much of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

had at one point in the past been covered by glaciers. The book was published in 1833 after additional research in the Swiss Alps,''Ein 'Nationales Forschungsprojekt' über Klimaänderungen in den Alpen – vor 180 Jahren!''
(A "National Research Project" on climate change in the Alps - 180 years ago). University of Berne, Switzerland). Accessed on March 8, 2008. seven years before

Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he recei ...

published his famous work ''Étude sur les glaciers'' (Study on Glaciers).

References

1788 births 1859 deaths 19th-century Swiss scientists Swiss glaciologists People from Visp (district) {{Glaciologist-stub