Hochstetter's Auckland diary

In the mid-19th century, the pioneering era of scientific geological exploration of the Earth began. With often laughably inadequate technical tools, some brilliant scientists managed to gain fundamental insights into complex geological processes. The developing understanding of the vast geological time scales and their significance for the evolution of life had explosive power. Due to this new, literally 'world-explaining' ambition, geology and paleontology became emerging sciences, and new findings were sometimes even controversially discussed in the cultural sections of daily newspapers. One of the great and colorful research personalities of this era was Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829-1884), born in Esslingen am Neckar. Hochstetter was a brilliant geologist with a Humboldtian talent for popularizing his findings without trivializing them. However, the foundation and driving force of his rapid career was certainly his 'New Zealand adventure,' the first episode of which is the subject of this book.