382 Obituary — Dr. Ferdinand StoUczka. 



DE. F. STOLICZKA, F.G.S., etc. 



Palseontologist to the Geological Survey of India. 



The sad news of the death of one of the ablest and most pro- 

 mising of paleontologists and naturalists has reached this country 

 by telegraph since our last publication ; and, although no particulars 

 have yet been received, there seems- no reason to doubt the accuracy 

 of the statement that Dr. Stoliczka, while returning from Yarkand, 

 with the other members of the embassy to which he was attached 

 as naturalist, died, among the snowy passes of the Himalaya, on 

 the 19 th June last. 



Ferdinand Stoliczka was born in Moravia in 1839 or 1840. Son 

 of a distinguished forest-officer, he acquired, from his infancy and 

 in his earliest rambles, that love of nature and familiarity with the 

 habits and instincts of animals which distinguished his after-life. 

 His early education was obtained at the "Gymnasium" of Kremsier. 

 (Moravia), and thence, at the termination of his school course, he 

 proceeded to the University of Yienna. Under the able guidance of 

 Prof. E. Suess, he was led to devote himself to geology, and with 

 the friendly and almost fatherly aid of Dr. Homes, of the Imperial 

 Cabinet, he made his first essay in paleeontology. He took the 

 degree of Ph.D. in the University. In 1861 he became attached to 

 the Geological Survey of Austria, under the lamented Haidinger, 

 and continued to work actively and earnestly for that institution 

 until he left Europe. Several valuable papers mark his early and 

 rapid progress at this time : " On some fi-eshwater-beds in the 

 Cretaceous formation ; " " On the Gasteropoda of the Hierlatz beds ; " 

 " On the Oligocene Bryozoa of Lattdorf," and others. In 1862 the 

 Director of the Geological Survey of India, then visiting Europe 

 with a special view to obtaining assistants for the staff of the 

 Survey, offered to Dr. Stoliczka, whom he met in Vienna, with Drs. 

 Haidinger and Suess, an appointment, which he accepted, and at the 

 close of that year he sailed for Calcutta. Arriving in the East, he 

 at once commenced his labours, and from that time until last year 

 he had devoted himself with untiring zeal to the study- of Indian 

 fossils. During those few years more than 1600 pages of descrip- 

 tive matter, and more than 200 large plates (quarto) of fossils, have 

 been issued under his care. The entire series of the Cretaceous 

 fossils from S. India, one of the most valuable and complete series 

 ever yet published from a single limited group, has been illustrated 

 in four very large volumes, and descriptions of Crabs from Kutch, 

 of Frogs from Bombay, and fossils from the several geological 

 formations of the Himalaya, have also been issued. The best proof 

 of the value set upon Stoliczka's labours is given in the fact that the 

 Government of India had just sanctioned double the amount of 

 grant for these publications, so as to facilitate and expedite their 

 issue. ISIor was bis work confined to the examination of fossils in 

 the cabinet. In June, 1861, as soon as it was practicable for him, 

 he started to the Himalaya, and succeeded in making a very wide 

 trip across the highest passes into Thibet and back. The results of 



