202 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
IN MEMORIAM : 
FERDINAND RITTER VON HOCHSTETTER. . 
a 
The telegraph on the 21st of July brought us the announce- ~ 
ment of the death of Dr. von Hochstetter, tidings that even here 
at the Antipodes have given deep pain to his'‘numerous friends 
and admirers. New Zealand owes a great debt of gratitude to 
this eminent scientific man, for the excellent work he has done 
for it, and for the affection and never-flagging interest he showed 
in it to the end of his busy life; and I personally have lost in 
him a faithful friend, who for. more’ than a quarter of a century 
has done me innumerable acts of kindness, and whose sterling 
worth and excellent qualities endeared him every year more and 
more to me. 
In offering therefore a notice of his remarkably unselfish and 
busy life, I only try to fulfil a sacred duty to one whose memory 
ought never to fade in this Colony. Thoughthe greater portion _ 
of the inhabitants of New Zealand know Ferdinand von Hoch- 
stetter only from his published works, there are still many of the 
old Colonists to whom, during his stay in New Zealand, he 
became much attached, and who like myself will feel that his 
loss cannot be replaced ; but to all of them a short history of his 
life—the first part from a biography in Brockhaus’ “Conversations 
Lexikon,” and the latter part collected from his writings and 
private letters—will doubtless be of considerable interest. 
Two photographs are added in illustration ; the first showing 
Hochstetter when he was in his twenty- -ninth year of age, from 
a lithograph drawn by J. Dauthage, of Vienna; and the other 
from a photograph by H. Harmsen, of Vienna, taken in 1879, 
when the fatal malady to which he succumbed had already 
taken hold of him. 
Ferdinand Hochstetter, born the 30th of April, 1829, in 
Esslingen, Wurtemberg, was the son of Professor Christian 
Ferdinand Hochstetter, principal clergyman of that town, and a 
naturalist of high repute, principally distinguished as a botanist. 
After passing through the grammar school of his native town the 
subject of these notes entered: the seminary at Maulbronn, near 
Tiibingen, to study theology. However, his love for the natural 
sciences, implanted in his paternal home, soon grew so strong 
that, besides theology, he studied mineralogy, paleontology and 
geology with great zeal and perseverance. After passing his 
theological examination successfully in 1851, and obtaining the 
degree of Doctor Philosophie in 1852, he left Wurtemberg, 
partly assisted by the Government, for a journey of some duration 
through Europe, mainly in order to enrich his knowledge of 
geology and the cognate sciences. | 
In the spring of 1853 he arrived in Vienna, where he soon . 
found employment on the Geological Survey ‘of the Austrian 
Empire. In 1854 he was appointed Assistant-Geologist, and 
