Her journeys
into the dark woods hark to a time when fairy tales and
scientific illustrations were equally plausible explanations of nature's mysteries: where Ernst Haeckel, Lewis Carroll, or the Brothers Grimm might all make suitable traveling companions.
Their sources include church records, commissions of inquiries
into glacier disasters, taxes on farms affected by glaciers, town records, population records,
illustrations and lithographs, observations by travellers and scientists,
scientific papers, historic articles on glaciers from contemporary sources in English, French, German and Italian, correlation with wine and grain harvest dates, alpine clubs, mountaineers and tree line / plant growth records amongst other sources.
Special thanks are due to artist and naturalist Emily Underwood, who distilled several complex geophysical concepts
into two beautiful
scientific illustrations produced specifically for this post.