Abstract. "B. F. Kuhn's contribution to the knowledge of glaciers 200 years ago". An extensive summary of Kuhn's essay "An Attempt on the Mechanism of Glaciers" is given with ample citations. He shows a remarkable insight into conditions and processes that make a glacier. Without using the following terms he describes metamorphism, the accumulation-ablation area concept, mass transport, glacier movement, formation of moraines and glacier variations in logical order. His glacier-flow mechanism by cavity collapse at the bed is a weak point, but the glacier-tremor reported in context deserves recognition: so does the essay as a whole.