EDOUARD ALFRED MARTEL AND THE SLOVENE KARST
EDOUARD ALFRED MARTEL IN SLOVENSKI
KRAS
ANDREJ KRANJC
Izvleček	UDK 551.44 (497.12) : 929 Martel E.A.
Kranjc, Andrej: Edouard Alfred Martel in slovenski kras
Martel je trikrat obiskal kras na današnjem slovenskem ozemlju. Pokrajina Kras je po njem "prva pokrajina, kjer so resno in znanstveno preučevali podzemeljsko hidrologijo". Odtod tudi njegovo zanimanje za obisk tega krasa: najpomembnejša je bila njegova odprava med 8. septembrom in 24. oktobrom 1893. V tem času je premeril, skupaj z vodilnimi avstijskimi speleologi in postojnskimi jamarji, podzemeljsko Pivko in s tem je postala Postojnskajama najdaljša v Evropi.
Ključne besede; krasoslovje, speleologija, speleozgodovina, Martel E. A., Slovenija, Postojnskajama
Abstract	UDC 551.44 (497.12) : 929 Martel E.A.
Kranjc, Andrej: Edouard Alfred Martel and Slovene Karst
Martel visited karst in nowadays Slovenia three times. Country Kras was, by his own words, "the first country where underground hydrology was seriously and scientificaly studied", hence his interest to visit it. The most serious were his investigation from 8"" September to 24"' October 1893. During this visit the survey of underground Pivka river was realized with the help of the leading Austrian speleologists and cavers from Postojna, and thus Postojnskajama cave became the longest one in Europe.
Key words: karstology, speleology, speieohistory, Martel E.A., Slovenia, Postojnskajama.
Address-Nasshv Andrej Kranjc
Dn geogr, viš. znanstveni sodelavec Inštitut za raziskovanje krasa ZRC SAZU Titov trg 2
SI-66230 Postojna, Slovenija
E. A. Martel was born on July, 1859 at Pontoise and died on June, 1938 at his castle La garde near Montbrison. According to the accessible documents he visited Austria four or five times: in 1866 (?), 1867, 1879, 1893, and 1896.
In October 6*, 1879 he visited with parents and five other Frenchmen Postojnska jama for the first time. He was deeply impressed, as he wrote afterwards: "les splendeurs de la caverne d'Adelsberg me firent envier les heureux pionniers souterrains..." (Casteret 1950; Marte! 1894).
Before Martel came to Kranjska (= Carniola) he was known speleologist already and he wanted to see and to explore also the karst - to be exact "les pays calcaires" - out of France too. Here it has to be mentioned that he did not like "neologisms" and he did not used the words "karstification" and "phenomenes karstiques" but "phenomenes du calcaire" instead of For him Austria was "la Terre classique des cavernes" and Kras itself "veritable terre des cavernes" (Martel 1894).
During the Martel's epoch the knowledge of the karst of Kranjska had long tradition already. I have to mention the earliest descriptions and investigations of caves and karst from 16"' century on (Wemher, Kircher, Valvasor, Nagel, Steinberg, Hacquet, Gruber), cave tourism (Vilenica in 17"' Cent., regular tourism in Postojnska and Škocjanske jame since 1819 on), and applied investigations (water supply, prevention of floods, tourism, etc.). These include deep potholes investigations on the Kras itself (Lindner - Labodnica or Trebiciano), Škocjanske jame (Svetina 1839), caverns of Notranjska and Kras (Schmidl about 1850), Škocjanske jame by Deutsche und österreichische Alpen Verein (from 1884 on). In Vienna the first speleological society "Verein für Höhlenkunde" was founded in 1879 and from 1889 at Postojna speleological society Anthron existed. Martel knew all this as may be seen also from his statements that the Kras "... c'est le premier sol ou I'on ait serieusement et scientifiquement etudie I'hydrologie souterraine ..." and that it "possede des grottes et des rivieres interieures qui, pour la beaute et la puissance, se placent au premier rangparmi leurs semblables." (Martel 1894).
On the other hand Martel was well known to the Austrian speleologists with whom he had scientific relations too. Already before his speleological visit of Kranjska, on the August 17"' 1890, a new discovered chamber in Škocjanske jame was named after him the "Martel Dom" (Pazze 1893).
One out of Martel's earlier and greater mission to the foreign karst was his visit to the Austrian karst in 1893 (from 8"' September to 24"' October 1893) during which he stayed at Postojna from 14* September to 24"' September.
The prepar3tions for his study voyage were exhaustive as usually. He turned for help directly to the Austrian government. In Vienna the karst of Kranjska was well known, regarding the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture was intensively occupied with the financing of the Notninjska karst investigations and floods prevention plans for the karst poljes. I am ignorant of Martel's proposals and arguments sent to Vienna, but I am sure they must exist in Vienna's archives.
In any case Martel's arguments were very good and he got the support from the highest court's and professional circles. Let Martel tell himself: "Par votre arrete en date du 16 Aoüt 1893 vous avez bien voulu me confier une mission scientifique ä I'effet d'etudier les grottes et riviefes souterraines du Karst (Carniole, Istrie, Dalmatie, Bosnie, Herzegovine et Montenegro ...'' (Martel 1893; Kranjc & Kranjc 1988). The Agriculture Minister Falkenhayn himself handed him recommandation letters for the civil and military authorities for the mentioned territories. And "... son Excellence le comte Falkenhayn, alors ministre d'Agriculture ä Vienne, avait mis ä ma disposition Mr Wilhelm Putick, inspecteur adjoint des forets ä Villach (Carinthie), ce dernier etait, par ordre superieur, charge de me conduire dans les principals et les plus interessantes des cavernes qu'il avait decouvertes et explorees ..." (Martel 1893). Putick was specialist (Kranjc & Kranjc 1981) for the investigations of karst underground and karst waters in Kranjska. He became the leading Austrian speleologist, primarily as a field researcher. But Putick was not simply appointed to accoinpany Martel, the formalities were respected. "Hofrath" Salzer personally came from Vienna to Postojna to introduce Putick to Martel.
Martel's underground investigations executed between September 15"'and 20"" are well known, a lot was written already about them and they are described in details in the chapter "Karst" of his book Les Abimes (Martel 1894).
For Carniola's karst the essential is Martel's underground navigation from Postojnska jama to Magdalena jama, thus the Postojnska jama system became the longest one in Europe, with the total lenght of about 10 km. And Martel's sentence published ifl Les Abimes, that Postojnska jama is "maybe the most beautiful in the World" had great influence upon the francophone and even larger public.
For the history of our speleology the fact that this achievement was made by the help of Postojnska jama workers, of the members of Anthron Club, and of W. Putick and F. Kraus personally, is of the same importance as the underground adventure itself Specially important is that Martel in Les Abimes mentioned all the names of his assistants. Martel's book and his letters were the only source of our knowledge upon Anthron Club, and before we found the Anthron's Statute also the only direct proof of the existence of the club itself (Kranjc 1988; Kranjc 1990).
For Postojna as a town the meeting of, we can say, the most eminent speleologists of the period was extremely important. Minister Falkenhayn ordered that "Flofrath" Salzer came personally from Vienna to Postojna to introduce Putick to Martel, and for this occasions at Postojna beside mentioned Martel, Putick and Kraus gathered also Pazze, Marinitsch, Müller and Novak. I may say that we are a bit disappointed that municipality did not mark some of these events by a monument, a table, by a name of house or street.
The direct Martel's influence was felt at Postojna too: few years later Postojnska jama administration purchased the same type of boats that Martel had.
Martel visited also an important part of Notranjski kras and Kras in its strictest meaning; that is less known but nevertheless important and interesting for our speleohistory: for Rakov Skocjan and Zelške jame in particular he said "Je ne connais rien de plus bizarre que cette disposition"(Martel 1894), in Velika Karlovica he found safety exit (where Putick and his workers were trapped by sudden flood few years earlier), in the entrance pitch of Logarček (in that period called "Falkenhayn Höhle") the wooden ladders from 1887 were repaired by Putick's command, he made an experiment to measure the ceiling height in Škocjanske jame by the means of paper "mongolfier" running on hot air, etc., etc.
Less known and studied is the influence that had our karst and Martel's visit to it on Martel himself and on his later work. However it is well known that he published special articles talking about our karst, he mentioned and used the examples from our karst in his other works (specially as references and for comparation), he came back to Austrian karst, and he maintained the contacts with Austrian speleologists and organizations (Postojnska jama included), and maybe the best proof is the legacy of the copy of the Austrian cave register, made by Kraus, to Martel, to the Societe de Speleologie respectively.
Named after Martel, there are beside the Martel's Dom in the Škocjanske jame which was mentioned already, along the underground Pivka river the Martel's Hall and the Martel's Breakdown, and on the Trieste Kras there is the Fovea Martel (Kranjc 1993).
Translated by Maja Kranjc
REFERENCES
Casteret, N., 1950: E.-A. Martel explorateur dumonde souterrain.- 1-232, Mayenne Kranjc, A., 1988: E. A. Martel o Anthronu.- Naše jame, 30, 18-20, Ljubljana Kranjc, A. & M. Kranjc, 1988: E. A. Martel na jugoslovanskem krasu.- Naš krš, 14,24-25, 149-158, Sarajevo
Kranjc, A., 1990: Društvo Anthron (1889), kot se kaže po svojih pravilih.- Naše jame, 32, 110-112, Ljubljana
Kranjc, A. & M. Kranjc, 1981: Viljem Putick (7.7.1856 - 26.1.1929).- Naše jame, 22,147-150, Ljubljana
Kranjc, A., 1993: Martel, Edouard Alfred.- Enciklopedija Slovenije, 7, p. 9, Ljubljana Martel, E. A., 1893: Rapport sommaire sur mes recherches dans les Cavernes du Karst etc.
Septembre Octobre 1893.- 1-8, Paris Martel, E. A., 1894: Les AMmes.- 1-578, Paris
Pazze, P A., 1893: Chronik der Section Küstenland des DÖAV 1873-1892.- 2-372, Triest
EDOUARD ALFRED MARTEL IN SLOVENSKI KRAS
Povzetek
Martel je trikrat obiskal kras na današnjem slovenskem ozemlju. Po njegovih lastnih besedah je Avstrija "klasična dežela jam", Kras sam pa "prava zemlja jam", kjer je bila "podzemeljska hidrologija prvič resno in znanstveno preučevana". Martel ni maral neologizmov in sije v svojih delih prizadeval, da ne bi uporabljali izrazov "kras" in "kraški", pač pa "apnenčev" ali "podzemeljski".
Njegova najpomembnejša odprava na naš kras je bila med 8. septembrom in 24, oktobrom 1893, med katero je bil deset dni (14.-24. septembra) v Postojni. Za ta obisk je dobil podporo in priporočila Kmetijskega ministrstva z Dunaja. Med 15. - 20. septembrom je Martel ob organizacijski pomoči V. Puticka in F. Krausa ter v spremstvu članov društva Anthron in vodnikov Postojnske jame preplul podzemeljsko Pivko od Velike dvorane v Postojnski jami do Magdalene jame. S tem je Postojnska jama dosegla dolžino okoli 10 km in postala najdaljša v Evropi.
Za Postojno je bilo gotovo velikega pomena, kar sicer ni ovrednoteno niti posebej obeleženo, da so se ob omenjeni priliki ,1.1893 srečali v Postojni z Martelom takratni vodilni avstrijski speleologi Kraus, Marinitsch, Müller, Novak, Pazze, Putick in Salzer - največje priznanje tako Postojnski jami kot postojnskim jamarjem.
Obisk našega krasa je imel velik vpliv tudi na Martela in njegovo kasnejše delo:
-	objavil je več prispevkov o našem krasu;
-	v drugih svojih delih često omenja kras in jame z našega krasa;
-	še večkrat je obiskal takratni avstrijski kras;
-	ohranil je stike z avstrijskimi speleologi.