COBISS: 1.01
KARST RESEARCH IN THE 19TH CENTURy - KARL DEŽMAN’S
(1821-1889) WORK
O RAZISKAVAH KRASA V 19. STOLETJU - PRISPEVEK KARLA
DEŽMANA (1821-1889)
Stanislav JUŽNIČ1
Abstract                              UDC 551.44(091):929 Dežman K
Stanislav Južnič: Karst research in the 19h century - Karel Dežman’s (1821-1889) work
Karel Dežman’s research of the karst phenomena was exam-ined. Among his works the cave research, description of Prote-us, other cave animals and plants were found. A special concern was put on Dežman’s sources dealing with Proteus research. As the custodian of the Land Museum of Ljubljana, Dežman pro-moted the Ljubljanian natural history research of his time. His scientifc works are not very well known because he did not follow the political line of the ofcial Slovenian national rep-resentatives.
key words: Karel Dežman, karst, caves, Proteus, Carniolan Land Museum.
Izvleček                              UDK 551.44(091):929 Dežman K
Stanislav Južnič: O raziskavah krasa v 19. stoletju -prispevek Karla Dežmana (1821-1889)
Dežmanova raziskovanja krasa so pomembno poglavje zgodovine kranjskega naravoslovja. Med njimi so opisi jam, človeške ribice, druge kraške favne in fore. Posebna pozornost je posvečena Dežmanu in znanim opisom proteusa. Kustos Deželnega muzeja Karel Dežman je bil gonilna sila večine ljubljanskih naravoslovnih raziskav svojega časa. Slabo poznavanje njegovega dela je predvsem posledica njegovega političnega delovanja, ki ga je kmalu odtujilo poklicnim zastopnikom slovenskih narodnostnih prizadevanj.
ključne besede: Karel Dežman, kras, jame, proteus, Kranjski Deželni muzej.
INTRODUCTION
Although Dežman was the most promi-nent natural history researcher in Ljubljana of his time, his work is now almost forgot-ten. Slovenes don’t remember him because they consider his political positions at least unfriendly. Germans don’t write about Dežman because he was obliviously not one of them. But politics should not efect decisively the greatness of Dežman archeological, botanical, or karst research, which we present in this treatise.
Dežman began his popular lectur-ing in Ljubljana immediately afer he lef a high school teaching post and became the custodian of Ljubljanian Land Museum in   Fig. 1: Karel Dežman.
1852. He delivered some popular lectures together with the Carinthian German filip Paushitz (* May 26, 1824 Nötsch), profes-sor of physics at Ljubljanian high school (Schmidt, 1966, 140-141).
In his very frst published Acts of the Museum Society in 1856 the Museum cu-rator, Karl Dežman (Deschmann, * Janu-ary 3, 1821 Idrija; † 1889), shortly reviewed natural historical research in Carniola. More or less, it was a kind of biography of six distinguished Carniolan natural-ists: Scopoli, Hacquet, Wulfen, Karl Zois, Žiga Zois, and Hladnik (Dežman, 1856, 9; Schmidt, 1963, 148).
1 Institut za matematiko, fziko in mehaniko, Jadranska 19, Ljubljana, juznic@hotmail.com Received / Prejeto: 15.10.2005
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DEŽMAN ABOUT CAVES
On June 11, 1856 Dežman reported to Museum Society about his research of the cave Skednenca. He described other interesting natural historical samples found be-tween Krim and castle of Mokrice under the Gorjanci hills. Te entrance into Skednenca was a difcult one. Te broken stones covered the main hall which had two holes, one of them used as the door. In the front face of the cave there was the lower much narrower port facing the south east side with many stalactites. Te smaller entrance had star-like cupola place which ends into lower hollow slit of stone wall facing the open space. Te cave was dry with some minor water from stalactite dropping into the basins. Dežman did not really like the scorpi-ons, jags and mosquitoes at the cave. Tree to four walk-ing hours from the cave Skednenca (today in township of Ig catalogued as No. 353) you could reach Počivavnik near the mountain Osredek (1300 m) in Kamniške Alps. Dežman used to visit the farmer house “Pri Benkotu” on the foot of the Krim Hill. Around Mokrice (Mokrc) many places borrowed their names from the Turkish war times, among them “Krvave Peči” with several interesting bo-tanical species (Dežman, 1862, 95-97).
Dežman frequently visited Kočevje, also as the elect-ed political representative of the area. On April 14, 1858 Dežman showed to the Museum Society the red alumina stone which he recently picked up in Wicherle cave of Kočevje area. He claimed that no stone like that was ever found in any other Carniolan cave. Te Vienna student franc Erjavec (* 1834; † 1887), who later became pret-ty famous as a Slovene fction writer, made a chemical analysis of the Dežmans stone. He found 8.05% of water, 10.74% of iron mine, 18.49% of alumina, 59.03% of fint-stone, 2.83% of sand, and 0.83% of other ingredients, also with some traces of lime and magnesia. Museum Society members examined the possible technical and industrial use of Dežmans stone for the fabrication of bricks; there-fore they also checked the homogeneity, granulation, and melting-point of the sample. Tey looked forwards for the more accurate fnal results, and everybody was curi-ous about the possibility of making available lower price alumina with lower transport costs.
Dežman reported to the Museum Society about ge-ology and fora of Kočevje area. He paid special attention to the formation of karst in Kočevje valleys under the castle fridrichstein, at the area of Seele (Željne), Grafen-feld (Dolga vas) and Mosel (Mozelj) with many karst fun-nels called “Dolina” (valley) by domestic people. All area from Mozelj to the hill of Verdreng is covered with hun-dreds of dolinas. from the elevated points around Poljane (Pölland) you could see the landscape covered with so many holes as the sieve. Dežman compared the area
of holes having regular conic shapes with similar sieves at the middle of Cerknica Lake, like Vodonos or Rešeto. Inner walls of those funnels are very fat, covered with the dense grass. Many karst plants grow there, among them the characteristic Satureja pygmmaea Sieb. around Mozelj. Te system of holes dilled with water is situated under the surface. As Valvasor before him, Dežman was also interested in the wild romantic of Bilpa spring, Veliko and Malo Okno with many creeks between Bilpa and the castle of Kostel above the Kolpa River.
Dežman paid special interest to the Ledena jama (Eis Grotte, Ice Cave) in Kočevski Rog and other caves near Ober-Skrill (Zgorni Škrilj, Zdihovo). Ice caves are the real snow cellars. “Afer one and a half hour of walk-ing from Kuntscher (Kunčar) Cave you can reach a snow hole in Kočevski Rog. It is the great cave overhang with rectangle stone walls approximately 200 m deep. On the bottom, you could fnd the ice even during the hottest summers”. Te charcoal-burners from Kočevski Rog use it as their water supply. Ledena jama in Kočevsko is situated pretty low above the sea level compared with others of its kind. Te Kočevje area have the characteristics of Alp regions at the extraordinary low height.
At noon on September 23, 1858 Dežman measured the temperature +1.25°C (1°R) in the cave, while at the shadow around snow hole the thermometer raised even to +21.25°C (17°R). Te cave ice was 20 m deep with more than 8 m of circumference. It had the structure similar to the ice in Kuntscher (Kunčer) Cave with more or less regular prismatic crystals of ice. Te stone walls were covered with coral-like porcupines hydnum coral-loides Scop. and other alpine plant Cystopteris montana l., otherwise found only at the heights 1000 m to 1800 m above the sea level.
During the high summer of 1857 the visitors were able to fnd at Kočevski Rog the representation of all four year seasons: winter ice, fowering spring Ompholodes verna mch. in woods, the summer vapors, and the ripe autumn fruits (Dežman, 1862, 225-228). Later on May 6, 1883 Dežman wrote a long German letter on blue paper about Ledena Jama in Kočevje region.
Most of Dežmans writings about caves remained unpublished and are nowadays kept at the ARS (Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 13 “Speleology”). Among others, we could fnd there draw-ings of the cave Vihled (Wicherle) near Kolpa. Dežman visited the cave on September 9, 1850. His young friend, the medicine student franc Serafn Plemel (* September 30, 1828 Bled; † June 21, 1852 Vienna), draw the picture of the cave for Dežman. Vihled is a cave above the village Bilpa (Wilpen) on the very border between domains of
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Kostel and Polland, which were abolished as a remains of the feudal system just before Dežmans visit.
During their tour Dežman and franc Plemel also visited the Selska (Seler) Cave near Verdreng in the for-mer domain of Kočevje. Plemel did the drawing again on September 23, 1850. He fnished the map which he began already two years ago on September 21, 1848, just afer the Vienna July revolution that also had some echo at Kočevje. With Dežmans help Plemel expressed an excellent knowl-edge and skill. Plemel was a son of a farmer Matija. Te family was very talented and later gave the very best Slo-venian mathematician Josip Plemelj (* December 11, 1873 Grad on Bled; † May 22, 1967 Ljubljana).
franc Plemel attended a local normal school be-tween 1836-1840, a Ljubljanese high school (1840-1846) and the higher studies of philosophy (1846-1848). He learned physics from Janez Krstnik Kersnik. He attended the Dr. Anton Schuberts († april 21, 1851) lectures on natural philosophy four hours per week Schubert used the Knor s zoology textbook, and botany and mineralogy textbook of friederich Mohs (* 1773; † 1839) from Graz just before Dežman returned to Ljubljana in 1849 afer his studies of medicine and a formal degree in law of Vienna University issued in 1849. When Dežman replaced gravely ill Schubert as a supplier on March 16, 1851 franc Plemel was already studying medicine in Prague and Vienna. Plemel eventually died in Vienna during the fourth year of his studies. Unusually, he did not use Knafelj scholarship for his studies. He made several successful botanical tours and discovered many new plants.
His older brother, biologist Valentin Plemel (* Janu-ary 7, 1820 Bled; † June 9, 1875 Koroška Bela), was or-dained as the priest in Ljubljana on July 27, 1843. Valentin used franc’ innovations and presented a very good herbarium on Vienna World Exhibition in 1873. Dežman published some of Valentins works in Acts of the Lju-bljanian Museum Society Alfonz Paulin (* September 4, 1853 Turniški Castle near Krško; † 1942) later used and further developed the Plemel brothers work
Dežman visited many other caves in the region, but he lef no other pictures of them. Besides Ledena Jama Dežman also wrote a letter about Vrlovka Cave at Ka-manje near Ozalj at the road for Karlovac in Croatia on August 19, 1866. Vrlovka was well known hiding cave during Turkish wars and it was opened for tourists in 1928. Dežman also mentioned Vražna cave and fnally wrote an undated letter about Postojnska cave on bright blue paper.
He published several Hochstetter s drawings of the Karst locations of their joint archaeology excavations (Dežman, Hochstetter, 1880) without specially point-ing to any Karst peculiarities. Dežmans collaborator, the Viennese Professor on Polytechnic ferdinand Knigt von
Hochstetter (* April 30, 1829 Esslingen; † July 18, 1888 Vienna), published the research of Križna (Kreuzberg) Jama north of Lož at the next volume of memorials of vienna Academy. Hochstetter, Dežman, and their friends researched the cave in 1878 and 1879. Te northern hall of the cave was called Dežmans hall until the end of Habsburg monarchy, as Dežman was the very frst to put his foot in it. Te southernmost part was named Hochstetters Treasury A skeleton was found 2 km deep in Mogrizer Höhle (Mokriška Jama) and it was carried to the Dežmans Museum of Ljubljana. Tey made a list of the animal skeleton parts found in Križna Jama. Hochstetters assistant between 1878 and 1882, later Professor Josef Szombathy (* June 11, 1853 Vienna; † November 9, 1943 Vienna), drew the coloured map of the Križna Cave in August 1879. He used the proportion 1:1000 and he added several enlarged details of the cave to the next table. Next he draw the map of Mrzla Jama (Merzla, Kalte Grotte, Cold Cave), one of several with that name in Carniola. fran and Matija Erjavec also participated in the research (Hochstetter, 1881, 294, 295, 302, 310, table II, table III).
Many friends helped Dežman in his cave research. Dežmans documents about caves are kept together with his writings about geography, descriptions of his Triglav climbing, the measurements of the heights in Carniola, hydrology, astronomy with letters and papers from Lai-bacher Zeitung, cosmology (with the description of the constellation of Serpents, the book of minister s advisor Marian Koile about the Passage Instrument published in Brno in 1863, the measurements of the telegraph ofcers in Postojna and Ljubljana, and also in Idrija by a priest Aischolze, Dežmans own description of the travelling Passage Instrument with two beautiful technical drafs at the end), mineralogy, the manuscript copies of the third part of Hacquets Oryctographia Carniolica oder physi-kalische Bescheibung des herzogthums Krain, Istrien und zum Teil der benachbarten länder (1784), geological ex-cursion, seismology, speleology, the agriculture lectures of Ljubljanian professor Hlubek, mineralogy, chemistry, and at the end even some mathematical calculations with triangles and square roots.
Dežmans inventory of the Dol Archive and documents about his purchase of it for Rudolphinum are kept together with his manuscript autobiography, a letter to his friend J. Braun of Kočevje, and Dežmans documents connected with the Central ofce for Meteorological and Magnetic measurements at Vienna. for several de-cades he and his sister Serafna measured the Ljubljanian weather conditions for the Vienna Central ofce (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fas-cicle 1).
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DEŽMAN ABOUT PROTEUS AND OTHER CAVE ANIMALS
Te Proteus anguinus was one of the main topics on the regular monthly meetings of the Carniolian Museum So-ciety. Dežman published some of his research of the cave plants and animals in his reports on the monthly meetings of the Museum Society. Most of Dežmans feld research took place in Kočevsko, where he also used to win the pools. He became the honor citizen of Kočevje, as he was named earlier in his native Idrija (1861) and Tržič. He found several black Proteus in Kočevsko caves. Most of Dežmans writings about zoology, karst and Proteus remained unpublished and are nowadays kept in ARS (Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature. AS854, fascicles 12 and 13).
On January 14, 1857 Dežman reported to the Museum Society about the so-called hollow rubble from the fossil hills discovered by the Professor franc Un-ger (* November 30, 1800 castle Amthof near Lučane (Leutschach) in Styria; † february 13, 1870 Graz). Unger classifed it into the family of algae. Dežman also showed to the audience the example of Laurentis book, Synopsis reptilium, where the very frst description of the Carnio-lan Proteus was published.
In his famous book, an Austrian Joseph Nicolas Laurenti (* December 4, 1735; † february 17, 1805), defned thirty kinds of reptiles and discussed their poi-sonous functions. Dežman certainly did not purchase the frst edition. He used ffy years later reprint, may be from the Erbergs Dol collection which he later bought for Rudolphinum.
Dežman also pointed to the Society publics the ex-amples of ice diver Colymbus glacialis and arctic diver Colymbus arcticus. Both were caught in December 1857 in Cerknica Lake (Dežman, 1862, 105).
On february 19, 1858 Dežman reported about gordius aquaticus l. which was found in drinking wa-ter in Trebnje. It was several centimeters long and the crafsman Klebel recently brought the sample right to Dežmans Museum. Dežman also showed the samples of black coal which the student Alfons Müllner found in Alps (Dežman, 1862, 220-221). Te able young Müllner later eventually replaced Dežman as the Museum cura-tor, but he never became his equal in karstology
PRINTINGS ABOUT PROTEUS
Dežmans writings about zoology and botany are kept in separate fascicle in ARS and are of special interest for Slovene karstology Among the last manuscripts there is a very interesting bundle about Proteus. Dežmans wrote sixteen pages of the A4 format letter about Proteus. It began with the list of the few tens of recent books and articles about Proteus which Dežman came across while reading secondary sources. Among the books in Rudolphinum Dežman kept Laurentis 1818 book that Dežman showed to the Museum Society in Ljubljana, but he did not list it in his manuscript dealing just with recent literature. In the last botanical book of the fascicle the pho-tography on glass is kept wrapped into a black paper fol-lowing the habit of their time. Te Photography is well preserved with just a little damage at one corner. Tere is no comment about the date of photographing, its con-tents or use. We can still recognise four bean-like pictures in natural dimensions, two as negatives and other two as positives. Tat was probably one of the earliest photo-graphs made for the natural history scientifc purposes in the area of todays Slovenia.
Dežman listed following books and articles about Pro-teus, with some biographical and bibliographical data added for this research:
blainville, H.M.D. de, 1819: Dictionaire des sciences na-turelles. 1-14. Levrault, Strassbourg. Reprint: 1820: Isis. 570 (Tourn. de Phys. according to Dežman, sine dato, 2r).
Dele Chiaje, Stefano (* 1794; † 1860), 1840: Ricerche ana-tomico biologiche sul Proteo serpentis. Napoli.
Confgliachi, Pietro (* 1779; † 1844), Rusconi, Mauro (* 1776; † 1849), 1818: Del proteo anguino di laurenti. Pavia: fusi (6 pictures, 119 pages, price 24 fr.). Re-print: 1819: fusi, Pavia.
Confgliachi, P. , Rusconi, M., 1820: Isis. 570-590.
Confgliachi, P. , Rusconi, M., 1821: Observatons on the Natural History and Structure of the Proteus Angui-nus (3 pictures). Edinburgh Phil.Journal. 4: 398-406; 5: 84-112. A. Constable, Edinburg.
Confgliachi, P. , Rusconi, M., 1828: Sopra un Protes fem-ines. Pavia.
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Dalton, John Call, 1853: Some Account of the Proteus Anguinus in Sillimans Amer. Journ. (2) 15: 387-393. Reprint: 1853: Edinburgh new Phil. Journal. 55: 332-340.
Van Deen, Isaac (Izaäk, * 1804; † 1869), 1834: Over de rijdelingsche takken van de zweraende zenum (Ner-on vagus) van den Proteus anguineus (1 picture). ti-jdiche voor natuurl. geschied. 1: 112-129.
Fitzinger, Leopold Joseph (* 1802; † 1884), 1850: Ueber de Proteus anguinus. Wien. Ber. mat. Nat. 5/3: 291-303. - Separate: 1850: Carl Gerolds Sohn, Wien.
Freyer, Heinrik (* 7. 7. 1802 Idrija; † 21. 8. 1866 Ljubljana), 1842: Ueber einen neue art von Hyposhthon (Proteus). (Wregman, W.F. Erichson) Archiv für Naturges chichte. 1: 289-290.
hyrtl, Joseph (* 1811; † 1894), 1850: Bemerkungen über de Proteus anguinus. Wien.Ber. mat.Nat. 5/3: 303.
mandl, Louis (* 1812; † 1881), 1839: Dimensions des globules sanguines du sang chez le Proteus. Compt. Rend.Acad.Sc. (Paris). 9: 739.
mandl, L., 1839: Dimensions des globules sanguines du sang chez le Proteus. l’Institut. 7/310: 427.
mandl, L., 1839: Note sur les globules sanguines du Pro-tée et des Crocodiliens (mit Abbildungen). Anal. Scienc.natur.ver.Zool. 12: 289-291.
michacheles, C., 1829: Proteus Anguinus Aristoteli pror-sus igntus suit. Isis. 1270-1273.
michacheles, C., 1831: Beiträge zür Naturgeschichte des Proteus. Isis. 499-509.
Oken, Lorenz (* 1779; † August 11, 1851 Zürich), 1817: Ueber de Oben (Proteus Anguinus). With Pictures. Isis. 641-645.
Rudolphi, Karl Asmund (* 1771; † 1832), 1819: Ueber de Proteus Anguinus. Isis. 1017-1019. - Translation: 1819. Phil. magaz. 53: 181-182.
Rusconi, M., 1817: Descrizione anatomiza degli organi della circulazione delle larve delle salamandre aquatiche. frisi, Pavia (with 4 tables).
Rusconi, M., 1827: Descrizione di un Proteus femina notabile per lo svilupo delle parti della generazione. With Pictures. Isis. 94-100. Translation: 1826: Frori-ep’s Notizien und der Natur und her Kunde. 16/332: 17-20.
Rusconi, M., 1843: Nuove observazioni sopra il Proteus Anguino di Laurenti. Lettera al Alessandrini. Nuovo Anal. Delle Scienze nat. Bologna. 9: 177-179. - Re-print: 1744: giornale del Instituto lombardo e Bibl. Italiana. 6: 288-290. - Abstract: 1844: Isis. 502-503.
Schmidl, Adolph von (* 18, Maj 1802 Königswart in Bohemia; † 20, November 1863 Buda), 1850: No-tizen über den von ihm under der Planina-Höhle mitgebrachten und der Classe vorgezeigten Proteen. Wien.Ber.mat.Nat. 5/3: 228-232.
Von Schreibers, Carl (* 1775; † 1852), 1802: A Histori-
cal and Anatomical Description of a Doubtful Am-
phibious Animal of Germany, Called by Laurenti
Proteus Anguineus. Communicated by Sir Joseph
Banks (* 1743; † 1820). Extract of the Philosophical
transactions. (2) 91: 241-261. Von Schreibers, C, 1802: Johan Heinrich Voigts (* 27,
June 1751 Gotha; † 6, September 1823 Jena) maga-
zin für das Neueste Zustand der Naturkunde. 4: 727-
732. Von Schreibers, C, 1818: Proteus Anguineus. J.G. Heub-
ner, Viennae. Von Schreibers, C, 1820: Sur le Protée. Isis. 567-570. Von Schreibers, C, 1820: Lettre de M. Charles de
Schreibers a M. Dumeril (A.M.C. Duméril (* 1774;
† 1860)) sur le Proteé et observation de M. Blain-
ville (Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (* 1777; †
1850)) a ce sujet. Isis. 567. Von Schreibers, C, 1832: Philosophical transactions. Ab-
stracts. 1: 47-49. Trevirianus, Gottfried Heinrich, 1820: De Protei Angui-
nei encephale et organis sensuum die qui sitiones
zootomicae. Com.Soc.Reg.Scient.götting. 4: 197-202. valentin, G., 1837: Bruchstücke aus der seineren ana-
tomen des Proteus anguinus. (Dessens) Report für
Anatom.und Physik. 1: 282-294. valentin, G, 1841: Ueber di Samentsierbündl und die af-
terdrüse des Proteus anguinus. Report für Anatom.
und Physik. 6: 353-358. viator, 1837: On the Proteus Anguinus by Viator. Ed-
ward Charlesworth’s Te magazine of Natural histo-
ry. 1: 625-530. Longman, Orme, Brown Green, and
Longmans, London. wagner, Rudolph (* 1805; † 1864), 1837: Stud. Notes on
Proteus Anguinus. Proceedings Zool. Society lon-
don. 107-108.
Many Dežmans references were published in Okens Isis, oder encyclopädische Zeitung von Oken. Oken, him-self an active researcher of Proteus, was born as Lorenz Ockenfuss and studied at the University of Würzburg and Göttingen. He began to publish Isis Journal in 1816. He printed it monthly until 1818 and later continued with two volumes per year. Te publication ended with Volume 41 during the “time of troubles” of the revolu-tionary Spring of Nations in 1848.
Oken got the title of adviser afer publishing the nat-ural philosophy textbook in 1810. In 1828 he became the private docent in Munich, Professor in 1832, and fnally the Professor of natural philosophy at the new Univer-sity of Zürich in 1833. In 1821 he purposed the organisa-tion of the later famous Meetings of the German Natural
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Historians and Physicians, that began with the very frst Leipzig gathering in 1822.
Rusconi was the dentist in Pavia (Dežman, sine dato, 4r) and he performed detailed anatomical research of Proteus probably under the infuence of Janez Anton Scopoli. Scopoli taught at the University of Pavia be-tween 1777 and his death in 1788 when Rusconi was still a teenager.
Schmidls research of caves all over the monarchy and especially at Planinska Jama (Planina-Höhle) earned him a funny nickname “Höhlen Schmidl”. fitzinger, Hyrtl, and Schmidl participated at the debate about Proteus in Vienna Academy held on October 3 and Octo-ber 31, 1850, and published in Wien.Ber. (5/3: 228-231, 291-303) later in the same year. Several other important scientist also took part in 1850 academic Vienna polem-ics about Proteus. Wilhelm Karl Knight Haidinger (* feb-ruary 5, 1795 Vienna; † March 19, 1871 Dornbach), the director of the State Geological Bureau and section mine adviser, researched the Proteus habitus in Idrija very deep under the surface with the help of the mine com-mander, Rudolf. (Wien.Ber. 5/3: 229). Te correspondent member of the Vienna Academy and the Academy general secretary Ettingshausens close friend, freyer, draw the map of Proteus habitus in Carniola. Te samples from Magdalenas cave were sold for 2 f up to 5 f at that time. With the same money you could buy 6 to 15 kg of beef in Ljubljana at that time (Melik, 1981, 31). Te wealthy put the Proteus in the glass bottles and showed them in their saloons like they used to show the goldfshes. 12 samples of Proteus were exported from Ljubljana to England (Wien.Ber. 5/3: 296).
Dežman actually copied parts of Rusconi 1817 and 1827 Italian publication with his drawings included. Dežman sketched the Rusconi s Proteus with pencil in a somewhat curved form (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12, sine dato, 4r). He showed all Proteus’ inner organs from Rusconi s studies (1817, 1827). On the lef margin Dežman separately drew some organs of Proteus and discussed their particularities (Dežman, sine dato, 3r). With that in mind, we claim that Dežman was quite an expert for Proteus in Carniola of his time.
Dežman drew the details with the letters a-l indicat-ing the important parts of the picture. He used Italian language with excellent skill. Besides fgure 1 of female Rusconis Proteus Dežman also discussed fgure 2, which he did not reproduce (Dežman, sine dato, 4r, 4v). Dežman
In Planina Mali Grad (Kleinhäusler) near the ruins of the castle they found new samples of Proteus. Cura-tor-Adjunct fitzinger reported about the well known Proteus researcher of Celovec (Klagenfurt), the general vicar, Count Sigmund Hohenwart (* June 7, 1745 Celje; † 1825 Linz). Sigmund studied with Ljubljanese Jesuits, Janez Jožef Lucius Erberg (* february 11, 1712 Ljubljana; SJ October 18, 1732 Vienna; † June 29, 1787 Dol), and franc Ksaver Wulfen (* 1728 Beograd; SJ October 14, 1745; † March 17, 1805 Celovec). During the school years they made natural history researches around Ljubljana, and during holidays they visited Alps. Sigmund lived in Carinthia until 1809 as a Wulfens close friend. In 1792 and 1812 Count Sigmund published his natural historical researches of Carinthia. In 1809 he became the Archbish-op at Linz. His collections of animals, plants, and miner-als were later given to Joanneum of Graz (Dežman, 1856, 9; SBL, 1: 335-336).
fitzinger mentioned that Schreiner got his Proteus from Žiga Zois in 1807. Löwengreif researched Proteus in Magdalenas cave in 1797 and 1808. Sigismunds relative, Count franc Jožef Hanibal Hohenwart (* May 24, 1771 Ljubljana; † 1844 Kolovec), was recognized as the best Carniolian researcher. He studied Proteus in 1825 at the creek near Lož (Laas). He made many tours to Alps, and headed the Carniola Land Museum as the president of the Museum curators and the president of the Carniola Agricultural Society between 1827 and 1834.
fitzinger was also interested at the Proteus research outside Carniola. Dr. Zohar of Zadar and the Professor Carrara of Split found Dalmatian Proteus samples (Wien. Ber. 5/3: 296).
described Rusconis opinion against the amphibian na-ture of Proteus (Dežman, sine dato, 4r).
Dežmans copying was one of his very useful habits. He also copied part of Hacquet s Oryctographia (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 13) and German translation of Hallersteins Latin letters (ARS, 730, Gospostvo Dol, fasc. 194: 810-850). Some of the originals which Dežman copied are now considered pretty rare. Dežman also copied parts of Blanville 1819 publication in french language (Dežman, sine dato, 2r). Dežman cited Blanville, Cuvier (1801), and Humbolts critiques of Laurentis Proteus research (Dežman, sine dato, 2r, 3v, 4v). Dežman mentioned Rudolphis letter to Isis, Scopolis work, and Kitaibels letter about Lika in Strelovachka Pojana below Badany Alps and Velika
PROTEUS DRAWINGS
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Stirovachka below Berdo (Hill) Vissesruga (Dežman, sine dato, 2v). Hungarian Pál Kitaibel (* february 3, 1757 Nagymarton; † December 13, 1817 Pest) was one of the
best chemistry and botanic student of Jacobus Winterl (* 1739 Eisenerz; † 1809) in Hungarian capital.
CONCLUSION
Dežman was the best versed and the most infuential Ljubljanian natural historian of his time. Te karst and cave research are just some aspects of his works, many of them published with the Vienna Academy of Science. Dežmans work show that domestic Ljubljanian research-ers of the caves and Proteus were well informed and able to perform some frst rate work of their own.
It s a pity that Dežmans work was simply forgotten for political reasons. Our publication is just one of the key-stones needed for his scientifc rehabilitation, to end the sorrowful neglect of his scientifc achievements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Tanja Žigon and dr. Janez Šumrada for useful suggestions, and Mellon grant of the University of Oklahoma for fnancial support of this research.
REfERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS
ARS - Archive of the Republic of Slovenia
Cuvier, G., 1807: Recherches anatomiques sur les reptiles regardés encore comme douteux par les naturalistes; faites a loccasion de l’Axolotl, rapporté par m. de humbolt du mexique. - L. Hausmann, Paris. Ac-cording to Dežman (sine dato, 2r): Cuvier, 1801: mémoires sur les reptiles douteux.
Dežman, K., 1856: Einiges über die naturwissen-schaflischen forschungen in Krain. - Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen landes-museums. 1: 1-11. Ljubljana.
Dežman, K., 1858: Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte des Lai-bacher Morastes. - Zweite Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen landes-museums. 2: 59-87. Ljubljana.
Dežman, K., 1858: Bericht über die bei der monatl. Vers-ammlungen der Mittglieder des Museal=Vereins gehaltenen Vorträge in den Jahren 1856 und 1857. -Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen landes-museums. 2: 88-142. Ljubljana.
Dežman, K., 1858: Tracheophyta. - laibacher tagblatt. 32. Ljubljana.
Dežman, K., 1862: Bericht über die bei der monatl. Vers-ammlungen der Mittglieder des Museal=Vereins gehaltenen Vorträge in den Jahren 1858 und 1859. -Drittes Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen lan-des-museums. 3: 219-236. Ljubljana.
Dežman, K., 1856, 1878: - Sitzungs-Ber. verhandlungen d. zool. Bot. gesellsch. Wien. (SBL, 1: 134).
Dežman, K., 1881: In Anton Kerner von Marilaun’s (* 1831; † 1898): Schedae ad foram exsiccatam Aus-tro-hungaricam a museo botanico Universitatis vin-dobonensis editam. - Ex Typographia caesarea regia aulica et imperiali, Vindobonae. Also in: Sitzunsgs-Ber. math. Naturw. Cl. Akademie Wien. 40: (SBL, 1: 134).
Dežman, K., 1878: Ueber die vorjährigen funde im Lai-bacher Pfahlbau. - mitteilungen der Anthropolo-gischen gesellschaf in Wien. 8:. Also: Selbstverlag, Wien.
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Dežman, K., Hochstetter, f., 1881: Prähistorische Aus-siedlungen und Bergräbnisstätten in Krain. Erster Bericht. Mitteilungen der prähistorischen Kom-mision der mathematisch-naturwissenschaflichen Classe der kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschafen erstattet von Carl Deschmann und ferdinand v. Hochstetter nebst einem Anhange über zwei Skele-tte aus den Gräben von Roje bei Moräutsch in Krain von J. Szombathy. - Denkschrifen Akademie Wien. (1) 42/1: 1-54.
Dežman, K., sine dato: Autobiography. - ARS. Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 1.
Dežman, K, 1884: Gang der Witterung im Gebiet der deutschen und österreichischen Alpen vom December 1882 bis November 1883 zusammengestellt von Museal-Custos Carl Deschmann. - Zeitschrif des Deutschen und Österreichischen Alpen-vereins. - Salzburg.
Dežman, K., sine dato: Writings about the zoology and Proteus. - ARS Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12.
Dežman, K., sine dato: Writings about the speleology with the drawings of the caves Vihled near Kolpa and Selska jama; letters about Ledena jama and jama near Ozalj. - ARS Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 13.
Muzejski kustos Dežman je leta 1855 oživil Kranjsko muzejsko društvo in v njem dajal pomembno spodbudo ljubljanskim naravoslovnim raziskovanjem. V tem prispevku prvič v slovenskem zgodovinopisju podrobneje opisujemo Dežmanova raziskovanja kraških jam, fore in favne, kot jih je objavljal v poročilih z mesečnih predavanj in sestankov Društva. Ob tem smo si ogledali še Dežmanove skice jam in proteusa v njegovi zasebni rokopisni zapuščini shranjeni pri Arhivu Republike Slovenije. Poleg skic smo našli še številna pisma o kranjskih jamah, popis Dežmanu dosegljive literature o človeški ribici in Dežmanovo natančno analizo fzioloških posebnosti proteusa, povzeto oziroma kar prepisano iz Rusconijevih raziskav. Preučili smo Dežmanov popis najnovejših, predvsem domačih, italijanskih in britanskih objav o pro-
Dežman, K., Seidl, f. 1898: Mittheilungen der Erdbe-ben-Commission der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschafen in Wien. VI. Die Erderschütterung Laibachs in den Jahren 1851-1886, worwiegend nach den handschriflichen Aufzeichnungen K. Deschmann’s zusammengestellt von ferdinand Se-idl. Vorgelegt in der Sitzung am 31. März 1898. -Wien.Ber. matemat-naturwiss. Classe. (2) 465-492. With extracts from Dežman’s earthquakes observa-tions in Carniola between 1855-1885, published in Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen landes-mu-seums. Ljubljana.
Hochstetter, f., 1881: Die Kreuzberghöhle bei Laas in Krain. - Denkschrifen Akademie Wien. (1) 43: 293-310.
Laurenti, J.N., 1768: Synopsis reptilium Emendam cum Experimentis Circa venena e Antidota, Reptilium Austriacourm etc. - Typis Joan Tomae etc., Vienae. - Reprint: 1818. - Pavia. (6 table, 199 pages).
Melik, V. , 1981: Ljubljanske cene kruha in mesa v predmarčni dobi. - Kronika. 29: 27-33. Ljubljana.
Plemel, V. , 1862: Beitrage zur flora Krains. - Drittes Jahreshef des vereines des Krainischen landes-mu-seums. 3: 120-164. Ljubljana.
Schmidt, V. , 1966: Zgodovina šolstva in pedagogike na Slovenskem. II. del. - DZS, Ljubljana.
Shaw, T.R., 1999: Proteus for Sale and for Science in the 19th Century. – Acta carsologica, 28 /1: 229-304. Ljubljana.
teusu. Tako z uporabo objavljenih del in rokopisov prvič podrobneje predstavljamo Dežmanovo bogato znanje, ki je segalo celo do matematičnih in astronomskih ved.
Popisali smo dela, ki jih je Karl Dežman objavil ali pa le napisal o krasu in o sorodnih vedah v Ljubljani ter v pomembnih dunajskih akademijskih publikacijah. S svojim delom je razširil sloves svojih in z njimi kranjskih znanstvenih dosežkov po celi Evropi. Slabo poznavanje Dežmanovega dela pojasnimo z njegovim političnim delovanjem, ki ga je kmalu odtujilo poklicnim zastopnikom slovenskih narodnostnih prizadevanj; nerodna politična stališča so ga oddaljila od tedanjih in poznejših voditeljev slovenskega naroda. Žal je zato doma kot naravoslovec slejkoprej ostal neznan: Nemo propheta in Patria.
POVZETEK
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Fig. 2: Dežman and Franc Plemel’s drawing of the cave vihled near Kolpa (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 13 “Speleology”).
Fig. 3: Dežman and Franc Plemel’s drawing of the cave Selska in Kočevsko region (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 13, “Speleology”).
Fig. 4: Dežman’s Passage Instrument, probably used for the determination of the geographical coordinates (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12, “Kosmographia”).
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Fig. 5: Te title page of Dežman’s manuscript about literature and anatomy of Proteus (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12 “Proteus” 1r).
Fig. 6: Dežman’s drawing of Proteus’ inner organs (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12 “Proteus” 3r).
Fig. 7: Dežmans drawing of Proteus as a copy of Rusconis study of female sample in 1827 (ARS, Privatae a archive of Karl Dežman, signature AS854, fascicle 12 “Proteus” 4r).
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