Otokar Feistmantel

Otokar Eduard Franz Karel Feistmantel (other spellings include Otakar Feistmantl) (20 November 1848 in Stará Huť – 10 February 1891 in Prague) was a Czech-Austrian (born in Bohemia) geologist and paleontologist who studied in Prague and Berlin and worked with the Geological Survey of India in India, where he replaced Ferdinand Stoliczka who died of altitude sickness on an expedition in 1874.

Feistmantel described several genera and species of fossil plants from peninsular India, and his work on the "Gondwana Series" contributed to the development of the idea of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland.

[1][2] Otokar was the second son of Karl (or Karel) Feistmantel (1819–1885), an expert on iron smelting who later took an interest in geology and palaeontology and Františka, née Nechvátalová.

His interest in science was nurtured by his father's circle of friends who included the geologist Jan Krejčí, biologist Antonín Frič, and cartographer Karl Kořistka.

[3][4] Feistmantel spent some time at the National Museum at Prague in 1868 organizing the Sternberg collection and in 1869, he accompanied Jan Krejčí to the coal mines in the Krkonoše mountains.

A vacancy at the University of Wrocław to assist Professor Ferdinand von Roemer opened up in June 1873, and Otokar was able to obtain this position.

Feistmantel had met Thomas Oldham in the Vienna exhibition, and when Ferdinand Stoliczka died of altitude sickness on an expedition, there was an opening at the Geological Survey of India.

[3] Feistmantel and his wife Berta arrived in March 1875 and were initially housed in a room in the local Madrasa school that belonged to its German headmaster Blochmann.

He made a trip back to Prague in 1878 with his wife and their two children, a girl Berta and a boy Ottokar who were born in Calcutta.

Life in Calcutta during that period, he noted, was pleasant and safe, with servants attending to most work and leaving him free to pursue his interests.

He noted that the beach was packed in the evenings with Europeans arriving in carriages, wearing fine clothes and women riding horses.