In 1837, Agassiz proposed that the Earth had been subjected to a past ice age.
He presented the theory to the Helvetic Society that not only had ancient glaciers flowed outward from the Alps, but even larger glaciers had covered the plains and mountains of Europe, Asia, and North America, smothering the entire Northern Hemisphere in a prolonged ice age.
In the same year, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Prior to this proposal, Goethe, de Saussure, Venetz, Jean de Charpentier, Karl Friedrich Schimper, and others had studied the glaciers of the Alps, and Goethe, Charpentier, and Schimper had even concluded that the erratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of the Jura Mountains had been moved there by glaciers.
These ideas attracted the attention of Agassiz, and he discussed them with Charpentier and Schimper, whom he accompanied on successive trips to the Alps.
Agassiz even had a hut constructed upon one of the Aar Glaciers, which for a time he made his home, to investigate the structure and movements of the ice.

In 1840, Agassiz published a two-volume work entitled Études sur les glaciers (Studies on Glaciers).
In this, he discussed the movements of the glaciers, their moraines, and their influence in grooving and rounding the rocks and in producing the striations and roches moutonnees seen in Alpine-style landscapes.
He accepted Charpentier and Schimper's idea that some of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and valleys of the Aar and Rhône, but he went further, concluding that, in the recent past, Switzerland had been covered with one vast sheet of ice, originating in the higher Alps and extending over the valley of northwestern Switzerland to southern slopes of the Jura.
The publication of this work gave fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world.

Familiar, then, with recent glaciation, Agassiz and English geologist William Buckland visited the mountains of Scotland in 1840.
There, they found clear evidence in different locations of glacial action.
The discovery was announced to the Geological Society of London in successive communications.
The mountainous districts of England, Wales, and Ireland were understood to have been centres for the dispersion of glacial debris.
Agassiz remarked, "that great sheets of ice, resembling those now existing in Greenland, once covered all the countries in which unstratified gravel (boulder drift) is found; that this gravel was in general produced by the trituration of the sheets of ice upon the subjacent surface, etc."
In 1837, Agassiz proposed that the Earth had been subjected to a past ice age. He presented the theory to the Helvetic Society that not only had ancient glaciers flowed outward from the Alps, but even larger glaciers had covered the plains and mountains of Europe, Asia, and North America, smothering the entire Northern Hemisphere in a prolonged ice age. In the same year, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Prior to this proposal, Goethe, de Saussure, Venetz, Jean de Charpentier, Karl Friedrich Schimper, and others had studied the glaciers of the Alps, and Goethe, Charpentier, and Schimper had even concluded that the erratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of the Jura Mountains had been moved there by glaciers. These ideas attracted the attention of Agassiz, and he discussed them with Charpentier and Schimper, whom he accompanied on successive trips to the Alps. Agassiz even had a hut constructed upon one of the Aar Glaciers, which for a time he made his home, to investigate the structure and movements of the ice.
In 1840, Agassiz published a two-volume work entitled Études sur les glaciers (Studies on Glaciers). In this, he discussed the movements of the glaciers, their moraines, and their influence in grooving and rounding the rocks and in producing the striations and roches moutonnees seen in Alpine-style landscapes. He accepted Charpentier and Schimper's idea that some of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and valleys of the Aar and Rhône, but he went further, concluding that, in the recent past, Switzerland had been covered with one vast sheet of ice, originating in the higher Alps and extending over the valley of northwestern Switzerland to southern slopes of the Jura. The publication of this work gave fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world.
Familiar, then, with recent glaciation, Agassiz and English geologist William Buckland visited the mountains of Scotland in 1840. There, they found clear evidence in different locations of glacial action. The discovery was announced to the Geological Society of London in successive communications. The mountainous districts of England, Wales, and Ireland were understood to have been centres for the dispersion of glacial debris. Agassiz remarked, "that great sheets of ice, resembling those now existing in Greenland, once covered all the countries in which unstratified gravel (boulder drift) is found; that this gravel was in general produced by the trituration of the sheets of ice upon the subjacent surface, etc."
Louis Agassiz