Ferdinand von Hochstetter

The German-born Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829–1884) is linked with the history of the natural sciences in the Bohemian lands from 1853, when as a geologist for the Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna he was involved in the first systematic geological mapping of Šumava. Besides practical mapping work, he also wrote a number of essays about the landscape of Šumava, which are still an important source of knowledge to this day.

Ferdinand von Hochstetter came from the German town of Esslingen am Neckar; after gaining his doctorate in the natural sciences he moved to Vienna in 1852 and in the following year was sent by the Imperial Geological Institute as an assistant geologist to southwestern Šumava as part of the project to carry out the first geological mapping of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. In 1855 he completed the mapping continuing along the Bavarian-Bohemian border in northwestern Šumava. At that time he also became the head geologist of the Imperial Geological Service. Besides his professional essays and lectures, he also published a series of popular scientific articles about Šumava, which were published in 1855 in the Augsburg newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung (Hochstetter’s poetic descriptions also inspired Adalbert Stifter to write his work Vítek). He also published these articles, which contained, for example, a detailed description of the virgin forest (which was not declared a protected area in Šumava until 1858), the Šumava peat bogs, mountain lakes and meanders of the Vltava, in shortened form in English in the London professional journal The Annals and Magazine of Natural History Including Zoology, Botany, and Geology. In 1856 he published an article on western Bohemia entitled Karlsbad, seine geognostischen Verhältnisse und seine Quellen (Karlovy Vary, its Geognostic Situation and Springs). One important event in Hochstetter’s life was his voyage around the world on the frigate Novara (1857–1859), on which he travelled as one of five scientists. After returning home he became professor of mineralogy and geology at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. He was a prominent supporter of Darwinism, and gave a public talk on the new theory of evolution in 1861. In 1872 Hochstetter published not only a Darwinist-oriented textbook entitled Allgemeine Erdkunde (General Geography), which was released by the F. Tempsky publishing house in Prague, but he also became science tutor to Crown Prince Rudolph. Hochstetter’s interdisciplinary approach found further fertile ground in 1876, when he was appointed director of the newly established Vienna Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), which, thanks to him, became a kind of “textbook of evolutionary theory”. This intention was evident not only in the arrangement of the natural science collections, with the addition of the departments of palaeontology and anthropology-ethnography alongside the existing departments of botany, zoology and mineralogy, but also in the overall architectural and artistic concept of the museum. 

Hauer, F.: Zur Erinnerung an Ferdinand v. Hochstetter. In: Jahrbuch der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Geologischen Reichssanstalt 4/1884, sv. 34, s. 601–608. 

Hochstetter, F.: Aus dem Böhmerwald. In: Pfligersdorffer, G.: Der Böhmerwald in Schilderungen der Stifterzeit. Linz 1977, s. 46–91. 

Hochstetter F.: Briefe aus dem Böhmerwald. Ottensheim 2017. 

Jovanovic-Kruspel, S.: Das Wiener Naturhistorische Museum und die Rezeption von Darwin(ismus) aus kunsthistorischer Perspektive. In: Matis, H.; Reiter, W. L.: Darwin in Zentraleuropa. Wien 2018, s. 425–445.

Ferdinand von Hochstetter (Author: )