214 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 
reading between the lines in his letters, he seemed to me to feel 
that he could not render due justice to his students at the 
Technical University and at the same time push forward as 
much as he ought the great Museum under his charge. 
That year (1879) was in every respect a very busy one for 
him. Lecturing, purchases for the museum, administrative 
duties, and a few excursions into the country, principally into 
Krain for directing excavations in pre-historic burial places, were 
the principal events. In May, after a great deal of delay, and 
consequently of correspondence, he was at last able to send the 
first and principal portion of the metallurgical collections made 
for the Technological Department of the Canterbury Museum, 
packed in seven large cases, with the “ Helgoland,” an Austrian 
man-of-war, bound for Sydney, with the Austrian Commissioners 
for the International Exhibition on board. This vessel had re- 
ceived instructions to pay, after a short stay in Sydney, a visit 
to New Zealand, and after calling first at Wellington to come on 
to Lyttelton. 
However, the commander, Captain Pichler, on arriving in 
Sydney, received counter orders, so he had to return to Triest 
by the direct route vza the Suez Canal, and thus had to forward 
our cases by one of the Union steamers. I regretted this very 
much, as I should have liked to see the Austrian flag fly once 
more in New Zealand waters. 
Towards the latter half of the year (1879), Hochstetter’s 
health declined still more. He now began to suffer greatly from 
a complaint in his legs, considered by his physicians to be ofa 
nervous character, which was so painful that he could not sleep. 
Especially during the exceptionally hard winter of 1880 it became 
very distressing ; but nevertheless he continued to lecture and 
attend to his other duties. . 
In the beginning of that year (1880) he could advance a stage 
further by ordering a portion of the show cases for the new 
Museum, but, he says, it is “a hard trial of patience” to find 
that everything goes so slowly that after all, before the year 
1884 the new building would not be ready for occupation. The 
same year saw him as zealous as ever, though he continues to 
complain most bitterly that he has now not only to give up geo- 
logical excursions with his students, but that “he can only make 
the necessary business walks in Vienna with trouble and pain.” 
The evil complained of became gradually worse, his hands being 
now affected in a like manner. 
He thinks, as he says in one of his letters written at that 
time, “that through the constant work and worry one becomes 
prematurely old. Fortunately (he adds) my children develop in 
a most satisfactory manner, and give me infinite pleasure.” 
Nevertheless he went in May for a few weeks to Bohemia in 
order to superintend some explorations of prehistoric burial places. 
His election as correspondent by the Geological Society of Lon- 
don is also mentioned by him as having afforded him genuine 
pleasure, though personally I consider it an oversight that this 
