De la Rive's first scientific publication was on the influence of the Earth's magnetism upon a movable frame traversed by a voltaic current, published in 1822, and followed by a memoir upon Caustics, which appeared in 1823.

For some years after his appointment he devoted himself specially, with François Marcet (1803–1883), to the investigation of the specific heat of gases, and to observations for determining the temperature of the Earth's crust.

[3] De la Rive began his scientific labors soon after the new era was opened in the history of electricity and magnetism by the discovery of electro-magnetism, and by Ampere's electro-dynamical theory.

This may account for the preference which the son early manifested for the study of electricity, and which he continued to cultivate in its manifold relations to the end of his scientific career.

In 1860, when the annexation of Savoy and Nice had led the Genevese to fear French aggression, De la Rive was sent by his fellow-citizens on a special embassy to England, and succeeded in securing a declaration from the English government, which was communicated privately to that of France, that any attack on Geneva would be regarded as a casus belli.

He reached Marseilles, where he died on 27 November 1873, at the age of seventy-two, this fatal termination of his first indications of declining health having been precipitated by repeated domestic bereavements.

[7] Their son, Lucien de la Rive, born in Choulex on 3 April 1834, published papers on various mathematical and physical subjects, and with Edouard Sarasin carried out investigations on the propagation of electric waves.