Friedrich Simony

Friedrich Simony (30 November 1813, Hrochowteinitz – 20 July 1896, Sankt Gallen) was an Austrian geographer and Alpine researcher.

Initially trained as a pharmacist, from 1836 he studied natural sciences at the University of Vienna by way of influence from botanist Joseph Franz von Jacquin. In 1848 he became a curator at the natural history museum in Klagenfurt, and during the following year, served as chief geologist at the Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna. In 1851, at the University of Vienna, he attained the first professorship for geography in Austria. In this role, he conducted research in the fields of glaciology, climatology, speleology, ecology, hydrology, phytogeography, etc.

From 1840 he performed geomorphological and glaciological research of the Dachstein Mountains. In September 1843 he was the first to spend the night at the summit of Hoher Dachstein (2995 m); in January 1847 he was first to achieve a winter ascent of the peak.

He is credited as being the first to undertake systematic meteorological studies of the eastern Alps, similar to the research Horace-Bénédict de Saussure performed in the western Alps years earlier. He was a pioneer in the field of limnology; in 1844 he conducted depth soundings of the Hallstätter See, results of which, were published decades later in Atlas der österreichischen Alpenseen ("Atlas of the Austrian Alpine lakes", edited by Albrecht Penck and Eduard Richter, 2 volumes, 1895–96).