Gustav Albert Stiasny

Gustav Albert Stiasny was born in Vienna (Austria) on December 10th, 1877. After he had attended the elementary and grammar schools there and having finished a one year course of lectures in commercial enterprise, Stiasny enlisted as a volunteer with the Austro-Hungarian army. A year later he left the army after he had obtained his commission, to take up an appointment with his father's commercial business. Young Stiasny, who was much interested in Natural History, soon left his father's affairs to give himself completely to the study of Zoology, Botany and Geology. For that purpose he attended lectures at the universities of Vienna and Jena. As about that time such celebrities as Hatschek, Grobben, Haeckel, et al., were lecturing there it is no wonder that Stiasny soon developed a strong preference for Zoology. In 1903 Stiasny took his Philosophical Doctor's degree at the University of Vienna, using his first three publications as his thesis. Stiasny then went to Norway to join an international course in Oceanography and to make a trip on board the research vessel "Michael Sars". Here he had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of a number of oceanographers and marine biologists of international reputation, viz. Appelloff, Helland-Hansen, Hjort and Gran. In 1906 Stiasny took part in an expedition of the University of Vienna to the West coast of Greenland. From his return until 1912 he worked at the former AustroHungarian marine Station at Trieste, where he became the personal assistant of Prof. Dr. C. J. Cori. During his stay in Trieste Stiasny travelled extensively in the Mediterranean, visited the Açores and the Canaries and in 1910 visited the Argentine Republic, Uruguay and Brazil. In 1912 he