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). Throughout his career, he conducted extensive investigations on the depths and temperatures of all the lakes in Salzkammergut.