234 FAMOUS GEOLOGISTS/Suess Figure Eduard Suess (1831 1914), in a portrait published in his posthumous 1916 memoir, Erinnerungen founded the concept of ‘eustatic’ sea-level changes Suess is also remembered as an engineer and politician He was a long-serving member of the Austrian national parliament and promoted and planned a new water supply for his home town, thus becoming one of the creators of modern Vienna Scientist, Engineer, and Politician The founder of ‘global tectonics’, Suess was born into a well-connected bourgeois family His father, a wool merchant, born in Germany, had worked and travelled in various European countries before setting up a wool business in London in 1828 Here, Eduard Suess was born on 20 August 1831 Three years later, the family moved to Prague, where Suess, as he later recalled, arrived as a ‘complete English child’ who understood not a single German word In 1845, his father took over a leather factory near Vienna The young Eduard got a polyglot education from English, Belgian, and German tutors In 1847, he entered the Polytechnic ‘High School’ (now Technical University) at Vienna, but soon left the revolutionary town of 1848, where he had participated in demonstrations, for the University of Prague His early subjects were higher mathematics, physics, and descriptive geometry The impressive collection of Silurian fossils at the museum in Prague roused his interest in geology, and he started to make excursions to nearby fossil-rich areas Back at the Vienna Polytechnic in 1849, he continued his palaeontological studies in the surroundings of Vienna In 1850, he presented a scientific paper (published in 1851) on Bohemian graptolites to Wilhelm Haidinger (1795–1871), who was then director of the newly established Austrian Geological Survey His very first publication, however, had been a chapter on geology for a tourist guide of the Carlsbad region; Suess had written the chapter in 1850 during a visit to the region for a ‘cure’ After returning to Vienna, Suess was imprisoned for his participation in the demonstrations in 1848 Although he was released just a few weeks later, he had to leave the Polytechnic School, thus never acquiring a doctorate or any other formal university qualification Nevertheless, in 1852, he was appointed an assistant in the Imperial Mineralogical Collection in Vienna Assigned to classify the brachiopods of the collection, he published some pioneering studies in this field His efforts to become a Privatdozent (private lecturer) at the university failed for his lack of a doctorate By his palaeontological work, however, and by early travels accompanying well-known geologists such as Franz von Hauer (1822–99), Arnold Escher von der Linth (1807–72), Paul Deshayes (1797–1875), and Ernst Beyrich (1815–96), Suess already had a name among earth scientists Thus, in 1857, on the recommendation of leading Vienna geologists, he was appointed ‘professor extraordinary’ of palaeontology at the university, and years later was appointed the same position in geology In 1867, Suess was appointed to a full professorship in geology, which he retained until 1901 For about three decades, Suess also travelled extensively throughout Europe An early engagement in school and university education marked the beginnings of Suess’ political career In 1862, he published an essay on the soils and the water supply of Vienna, showing that the numerous epidemics of that time, particularly typhoid, resulted from the city’s water supply, which was at that time mainly based on wells The following year, Suess was elected a member of the town council and was named head of a commission to study the water supply He suggested that water should be brought by an aqueduct from mountains springs, about 70 km away; 10 years later, in 1873, the new pipeline began to operate, and the number of deaths from typhoid fever was subsequently reduced to one-fourth Suess’ second famous engineering project was the regulation of the Danube, designed to prevent the frequent flooding of the lower lying areas of Vienna A canal was opened in 1875, and after 1876, there were no more major floods Suess was also a member of the Diet of Lower Austria from 1869 to 1874, and he held a seat in the Austrian