He studied geology and other sciences in Geneva, where one of his teachers was Nicolas Theodore de Saussure, and in Berlin as a student of Leopold von Buch and Alexander von Humboldt. In 1856 he became professor of geology at the École Polytechnique in Zürich and established the Geological Institute there.Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (biography) His researches led him to be regarded as one of the founders of Swiss geology.
