Case Studies from the Dinaric Karst of Slovenia

ogy started. In 1531 a lawyer from Ljubljana,Benedikt Kuripečič (Kuripešič) (born 1490)published a diary of his voyage through theBalkans as the interpreter to the Turkish sultanSuleiman to Constantinople (Curipeschitz1531). From the point of view of karst he mentionsjust some karst spring (Kranjc 2008).Equally unimportant is Leonberger’s longpoem about the Lake of Cerknica. Accordingto the description (oral or written) of S. Herberstein,Vienna’s diplomat by the origin fromVipava, G. Wernher (1551) published a descriptionof this lake (in fact seasonally floodedpolje), including the map (Simoniti 2010). Onthe other side of Dinaric karst a philosopherfrom Dubrovnik, Nikola Gučetić (Gozze 1584)published a discussion of the wind in the Caveof Vjetrenica (Wind Cave) and of the speleothemsfrom the cave Šipun. The reputationof the Cerkniško jezero (Cerknica lake) grewwhich can be well seen from the contemporaneousmaps of Lazius, Ortelius or Mercator forexample: the lake is drawn much bigger thanit deserves according to the scale of the map.Evliya Çelebi (Evlija Efendi), his full namewas Evlijā ibn Derviš Mehmed Zillī, travelledthe whole of his life (1611 – 1682), a lot throughBalkans too. In his diaries, discovered littlemore than 100 years ago, are described karstlandscapes, water phenomena, caves (mostlyin connection with fighting guerrilla). Curiouslyhe knows a sort of corrosion: to make theroad through limestone terrain large enoughto pass the canons, soldiers had to pour theacid on the limestone (Kranjc 2008)! This isalso a time when one of the leading scientistsFig. 4: Valvasor’s hydraulic model of Cerkniško jezero (Cerknica lake).10