Abstract
This interesting and heavy, 464-page book about Slovene karst and caves is full of illustrations, photos, old postcards, maps and tables with accompanying text. It is written by an English-Slovene team – Trevor Shaw and Alenka Čuk – and published by the Science and Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
In the preface, the authors describe how nearly half of the land area in Slovenia consists of karst and they draw attention to the fact that karst beneath the earth surface – the dark and mysterious world of caves and rivers, waterfalls and weird animals – is arguably even more fascinating than what is visible above the earth surface. The book does not focus on the natural processes behind the formation of karst. Rather, it describes how karst was experienced by people in the past and how it impacted people’s lives. In some ways it describes the ‘social history’ of the Slovene karst region, although it also touches upon technical aspects of historical cave exploration, such as the electrification and illumination of caves, and the challenges of cave photography. The book mainly covers the period from the 16th century until 1914.
Slovene Karst and Caves in the Past consists of five parts – the introduction, ‘Cerknica Lake and Rakov Škocjan’, ‘Postojna cave’, ‘Škocjan cave and Vilenica cave’ and ‘Some other caves’, thus covering the best-known caves and karst fields of the region. In the introduction, the authors discuss the etymology of the word ‘karst’ and describe early attempts to map cave systems. The introduction also speculates about whether or not the mythical Argonauts used underground karst rivers when they reportedly travelled towards the Adriatic Sea. The introduction also describes touristic aspects of travelling to and within caves, as well as some visits of renowned biologists to the Slovene caves to study insects and amphibians, with particular emphasis on the so-called human fish or Proteus anguinus.
Part 2 of the book deals with the largest karst lake in Slovenia, Cerknica Lake, and looks into the seasonal cycles of appearance and disappearance of its water. This 25-km2-large lake is one of the main attractions in Slovenia, as well as a nature reserve. The plethora of descriptions and images in the book suggest that it has not changed much over time. I found the collection of early explanations of the lake’s behaviour of particular interest. Some are just fun to read, but others also give a quite accurate insight in karst processes. In fact, some of these early explanations were quite close to our present understanding of the lake’s behaviour. Cerknica Lake and Rakov Škocjan are closely related. Rakov Škocjan is a spectacular and picturesque, c. 2-km-long karst depression formed by the river Rak, which gets its water mainly from Cerknica Lake. The collection of material (paintings, maps, drawings and postcards) in this book depicting Rakov Škocjan is impressive.
Part 3 of the book is dedicated to Slovenia’s most visited, and possibly also the longest and most beautiful cave – the Postojna cave. The section starts with a description of the exploration and surveying of the cave. Although the majority of the cave system was discovered by Luka Čeč in 1818, some parts were discovered and surveyed much earlier, in 1679, as reported by Valvasor. Part of this section also describes how different researchers discovered different parts of the same cave system, and how the whole cave system was surveyed and mapped – a process which actually stretches to the present day. Postojna cave has a long tradition of visiting, of which the authors give a comprehensive overview. The first records are written on the walls of the cave and originate from 1413. I found it particularly interesting to read that Thomas Cook was actually the first to organise guided tours to the cave as early as 1868. Furthermore, Cook suggested, in order to make sightseeing easier, to build a railway in the cave, which was completed in 1872. The chapters that follow are dedicated to books and tourist guides about the Postojna cave. Interesting also is a section in this part of the book that describes the history of lighting in the Postojna cave. Early explorers and visitors used flame torches, oil lamps and candles for illumination, but because of increasing numbers of visitors and the negative effect of the smoke generated on limestone formations, the local community decided to install electric illumination. In 1884, Postojna cave became the third cave in the world to use electricity for illumination. The final chapters of this part describe organised events in Postojna cave from music gigs to painting and photographic exhibitions.
Part 4 is all about the caves of Škocjan (UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986), the most spectacular and wildest caves of all Slovenian caves. The caves of Škocjan are breath-taking, with deep subterranean gorges and waterfalls. They were not only extremely difficult to explore but also very dangerous for visitors. This part starts, like Part 3, with a description of early mapping attempts and with accounts of the first visitors. The two chapters that follow describe the exploration of Škocjan caves and the development of organised visits for tourists. The authors dedicate a whole chapter to the German-Austrian Alpenverein excursion to Škocjan cave, because of a comprehensive book with descriptions, maps and photographs about the caves published by this organisation. In one section of this Part 4, the authors also describe the less famous, but also very beautiful cave called Vilenica. This accessible cave was known to visitors as early as 1633 because of it being in the vicinity of Trieste.
Finally, Part 5 describes some of the other, less well-known caves in Slovenia, but as is described in the book, still well-visited in the past. Some of these caves have majestic entrances, such as Planina cave (which was recently found to be connected to Postojna cave); other caves have castles just at their entrances, such as Predjama cave, while others still have a reported religious meaning, such as Holy cave near Socerb.
As a researcher dealing mostly with palaeoclimatology and forest ecology, I enjoyed reading this book. In particular, because Slovenians are very proud of their subterranean world and we always welcome books dealing with this national natural beauty. This book is packed with information, usually not widely available. As such I think this book is a valuable contribution to the general knowledge and can be easily used as a source for writing more in-depth studies of particular caves and other karst features.