Höchst is also the name of a small town in Hesse. This has some manufactures, and was formerly the seat of a Benedictine monastery.
HÖCHSTÄDT, a town of Bavaria, Germany, in the district of Swabia, on the left bank of the Danube, 34 m. N.E. of Ulm by rail. Pop. (1905) 2305. It has three Roman Catholic churches, a castle flanked by walls and towers and some small industries, including malting and brewing. Höchstädt, which came into the possession of Bavaria in 1266, has been a place of battles. Here Frederick of Hohenstaufen, vicegerent of the Empire for Henry IV., was defeated by Henry’s rival, Hermann of Luxemburg, in 1081; in 1703 the Imperialists were routed here by Marshal Villars in command of the French; in August 1704 Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French and Bavarians commanded by Max Emanuel, the elector of Bavaria and Marshal Tallard, this battle being usually known as that of Blenheim; and in June 1800 an engagement took place here between the Austrians and the French.
There is another small town in Bavaria named Höchstadt. Pop. 2000. This is on the river Aisch, not far from Bamberg, to which bishopric it belonged from 1157 to 1802, when it was ceded to Bavaria.
HOCHSTETTER, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN VON, Baron (1829-1884), Austrian geologist, was born at Esslingen, Würtemberg, on the 30th of April 1829. He was the son of Christian Ferdinand Hochstetter (1787-1860), a clergyman and professor at Brünn, who was also a botanist and mineralogist. Having received his early education at the evangelical seminary at Maulbronn, he proceeded to the university of Tübingen; there under F. A. Quenstedt the interest he already felt in geology became permanently fixed, and there he obtained his doctor’s degree and a travelling scholarship. In 1852 he joined the staff of the Imperial Geological Survey of Austria and was engaged until 1856 in parts of Bohemia, especially in the Böhmerwald, and in the Fichtel and Karlsbad mountains. His excellent reports established his reputation. Thus he came to be chosen as geologist to the Novara expedition (1857-1859), and made numerous valuable observations in the voyage round the world. In 1859 he was engaged by the government of New Zealand to make a rapid geological survey of the islands. On his return he was appointed in 1860 professor of mineralogy and geology at the Imperial Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, and in 1876 he was made superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum. In these later years he explored portions of Turkey and eastern Russia, and he published papers on a variety of geological, palaeontological and mineralogical subjects. He died at Vienna on the 18th of July 1884.
Publications.—Karlsbad, seine geognostischen Verhältnisse und seine Quellen (1858); Neu-Seeland (1863); Geological and Topographical Atlas of New Zealand (1864); Leitfaden der Mineralogie und Geologie (with A. Bisching) (1876, ed. 8, 1890).
HOCKEY (possibly derived from the “hooked” stick with which it is played; cf. O. Fr. hoquet, shepherd’s crook), a game played with a ball or some similar object by two opposing sides, using hooked or bent sticks, with which each side attempts to drive it into the other’s goal. In one or more of its variations Hockey was known to most northern peoples in both Europe and Asia, and the Romans possessed a game of similar nature. It was played indiscriminately on the frozen ground or the ice in winter. In Scotland it was called “shinty,” and in Ireland “hurley,” and was usually played on the hard, sandy sea-shore with numerous players on each side. The rules were simple and the play very rough.
Modern Hockey, properly so called, is played during the cold season on the hard turf, and owes its recent vogue to the formation of “The Men’s Hockey Association” in England in 1875. The rules drawn up by the Wimbledon Club in 1883 still obtain in all essentials. Since 1895 “international” matches at hockey have been played annually between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; and in 1907 a match was played between England and France, won by England by 14 goals to nil. In 1890 Divisional Association matches (North, South, West, Midlands) and inter-university matches (Oxford and Cambridge) were inaugurated, and have since been played annually. County matches are also now regularly played in England, twenty-six counties competing in 1907. Of other hockey clubs playing regular matches in 1907, there were eighty-one in the London district, and fifty-nine in the provinces.