Provenance: The La Rochefoucauld copy, with Chateau de la Roche Guyon inkstamp to each title-page; purchased at the Rochefoucauld sale, Monaco, 1987. Wäber 40; Nava B/1 (first work; cf. B/2 for second work); Meckly 026 (first work); Perret 0658, 0660 (part). The first two volumes offered here describe Bourrit’s travels in the Valais and in the Pennine and Rhaetian Alps, with particular details of his investigations of the region’s glaciers such as the Rhone, and of the passes (Grimsel, St. Gothard). The second work, Nouvelle Description, describes the various attempts to reach the summit of Mont Blanc. The two titles were offered as a three-volume work in 1785 under the title Nouvelle description générale et particulière des Glacières; offered here are the original two-volume first edition of the first work, and the third volume of the 1785 work in its first appearance from the collected edition. (The Nouvelle Description was also available as a separate work, in which form it contains a map; this appeared in the first volume of the collected edition, so is not present in our set.)