Venetz picked up on and developed ideas about puzzling aspects of glaciation before his better-known friend and colleague Charpentier, whom he helped to persuade. They were in the habit of meeting and discussing ideas, as they did when Agassiz (and Schimper) came to stay with Charpentier in 1836; it was these two younger men who developed a full theory of glaciation and of a widespread ice-age.