This drawing of the Glacier des Evettes, sketched circa 1909-1910 by Emmanuel de Martonne in one of his 27 field notebooks, shows the interest of the French geographer for glaciers and his research on their erosive action. The drawing and notes are related to the photographic glass plate taken by Emmanuel de Martonne on the spot.
Giacomo Ciamician (1857-1922) was a pioneer in the study of photochemical reactions and their applications. However, at the time, the light sources in the scientific laboratories were too weak to conduct meaningful experiments. He therefore had to use sunlight for his researches. To this end, he used a terrace of the Institute of Science of the University of Bologna. In this picture, dating from the first decade of the 20th century, he inspects the flasks that contained the organic substances whose light induced transformations he wanted to study together with his friend and collaborator Paul Silber (1851-1932).
This is one of the photographs under glass plate of the collection "Emmanuel de Martonne " which contains about 11,000 pictures. It shows the interest of geographer E. de Martonne for glaciers and his questioning on their erosive action.The handwritten legend on the original document reads: "Alps: Valleys, internal alpine massifs: Maurienne: Glacier des Evettes (Hte-Maurienne) seen from the refuge, middle glacial drift - terminal basin with small lakes" .
