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"Science as communication in the metropolis of Vienna" is the title of the renowned science historian Marianne Klemun from the Institute of History at the University of Vienna in her freshly printed edition of Franz von Hauer's diaries from the years 1860 to 1868 at Böhlau. The private notes provide an insight into the world of a great scientist from the second half of the 19th century; you can learn about private matters as well as details about scientific operations. Franz von Hauer, born in 1822, was a paleontologist and geologist since the founding of the k. k. Geological Reichsanstalt in 1849 through director Wilhelm von Haidinger (1795–1871), its deputy director, then its director from December 1, 1866, before he went to the Imperial and Royal Institute from 1885 as general director (until 1896). k. natural history court museum changed.
A look at October 17, 1861, a Thursday, shows Hauer's busy daily program, which was interrupted by a shopping trip in the city center of Vienna with his wife Louise: "Written early on the article for the Wiener Zeit[un]g. - Into the institution, Beer presses me into a lecture at one of the ladies' evenings in the horticultural society I agree. - Letter from Jokely - I will answer immediately. - To the Worked on chalk fossils. - Afternoon with Louise in the city, went shopping, then received another Haidinger treatise on meteorites from the Ministry of War.
The chronology of daily business as a “checklist cascade”
Klemun says: "The diary (notebook) accompanies work processes and agreements in time and space like a sieve. It serves as a distillation of the day to support the author's self-control and represents an investment in the future. Like a checklist cascade, Hauer works through his daily business in the book chronologically according to its completion." When Hauer speaks of the "institution", he means his office, the k. k. Geological Institute, which was then located in the Rasumofsky Palace (Vienna's 3rd district, Rasumofskygasse 23). Joseph Georg Beer (1803–1873) was a botanist and general secretary of the k. u.k. Horticultural Society. The geologist Johann Jokely (1826–1862) focused his work in Bohemia and the meeting mentioned here in the Academy (of the Sciences) was the weekly meeting place for scientists in the Academy based on Universitätsplatz, which has been called Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz since 1949. At the meetings, which took place on Thursdays, new research was presented ("presented") and discussed. In the Novara work mentioned here, Karl von Scherzer (1821–1903) describes the circumnavigation of the world by the SMS frigate Novara between 1857 and 1859 in three volumes.
Hidden notes in Bittner's Bosnia diary
It was also Hauer who, as director, wrote a foreword to the "Basic Lines of the Geology of Bosnia-Hercegovina" on March 1, 1880, the explanations for the geological map that the three geologists Edmund von Mojsisovics (1839-1907), Emil Tietze (1845-1931) and Alexander Bittner (1850-1902) had prepared on site in the summer of 1879. Bittner's small-format diaries provide insight into his geological mapping work in the Balkans. Bittner, like his two colleagues in their respective work areas, was traveling alone. His diary, written in pencil, begins on June 7, 1879 with the arrival ("Early 7 a.m. with the Southern Railway express train to Agram") and mainly contains geological notes. There are flaps on the front and back cover behind which numerous notes are hidden. Cost statements for pack horses and their feed predominate. What is striking is a hectographed program note with a list of eight pieces of music with the note: "Visegrad, July 6, 1879".
On this day, the city, which is located in the southeast of Bosnia near the Serbian border on the Drina, performed, among other things, the waltz "I am a wer" by the now largely forgotten composer Heinrich Strobl, who died in 1883. But there are also more well-known names, such as Franz von Suppè. The overture to his operetta “Ten Girls and No Man” was performed. Interestingly, Bittner's diary entry for Sunday July 6, 1879 contains no reference to the concert and so we will never know whether he enjoyed it. Or perhaps he deliberately didn't want to give any insight into his private conversations in the diary with only business entries.
Tietze's illegible handwriting
In the course of working on the book "Adventure Science", which contains a chapter "From Expedition Diaries", I came across Emil Tietze's diaries. Tietze, born in 1845, who married Rosa Hauer, the daughter of his director, in 1879, had already been in Persia from 1873 to 1875. The diaries he wrote there are barely larger than a cigarette pack, making them ideal for pocketing, but they are written in such an illegible way that he later transcribed his own diaries into more legible writing.
Tietze, who was director of the k. k. Geological Institute, was very vain until the end of his life in 1931. He wanted his obituary to include a complete list of all his publications; his heirs would have to cover the additional printing costs. And so his concern that his notes can also be read by later generations is understandable. In any case, the easier readability can be confirmed. (Thomas Hofmann, July 17, 2020)