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ACTA CARSOLOGICA
XXXIII/
II 332-333
LJUBLJANA 2004
ACTA CARSOLOGICA XXXIII/ II 332-333 LJUBLJANA 2004
Floating islands and
karst:
Chet Van Duzer: Floating
Islands, A Global Bibliography
Pp. I-XIII, 400, Cantor
Press, Los Altos Hills (California)
2004
To an average versed and educated reader the word floating island evokes association to Jules Verne and Jonathan Swift, to the description of explorations of swamps along the upper course of the Nile River and to the floating gardens of the Titicaca Lake. These do not seem entirely concrete objects existing in the everyday life. This is the case in most countries without such islands. The word does not evoke the thoughts on Pliny or on oil-platforms and "seaports" ý floating airports. In any case it is not a topic for Acta carsologica.
Van Duzer's book consists of two main parts. The first (33 pp.) is a reprint of the full Latin text and English translation of Georgius Christophorus Munz's Exercitatio academica de Insulis natantibus. Thus the basic work on the topic is easily accessible to the reader, both in its original form as well as its translation. Comprehensive and clear notes by Van Duzer follow (pp. 35 ý 67) the Munz's description.
The second and the main part of the book is Global Bibliography on Floating Islands. On 280 pages there are gathered more than 1500 references of books and articles in twenty languages treating this subject. Further on these subjects are gathered in Thematic Indices, Geographical Index and Appendices (Gazetteer of Floating Islands Not Described in Print; Bibliography of Early Accounts of New Volcanic Islands). At the end there are 24 colour illustrations.
For a non-connoisseur such an abundant literature on floating islands is surprising. Among 1500 entries there are 17 Western Classical authors and 19 so-called Post-Classical authors, cited already by Munz. Beside these there are mentioned also (unpublished) documents from the Middle Ages too. Examples are Gervase of Tilbury, Geraldus Cambrensis and Boccaccio even. And where comes karst in such a book?
Among the Classical authors there are such that are known to write about karst phenomena such as Pliny, Strabo and Virgil for example. In Virgil's Eneida both the floating island and karst springs (of the Timavo River) are mentioned. The best-known example is polje (or lake) of Kopa_s, which was drained in the 13th century BC already.
Of the Post-Classical authors I mention only those who write about the karst in Carniola (nowadays part of Slovenia). These are Clüver (1624), Kircher (1665), Francisci (1668), Valvasor (1689), and Steinberg (1758). From the Slovene karst two examples of floating islands are described by the mentioned authors: one is the fish-pond of the Cistercian (White Friars) monastery of Stična, and the other one is the polje or (karst) lake of Cerknica (Cerkniško Polje or Cerkniško jezero). What happened with the first one we do not know. It seems that there are no more ponds near Stična, but they used to be in the Valvasor's time. The part of Cerkniško Jezero Lake which is reported, as a floating island is just slightly higher bottom nowadays, never flooded. In the Valvasor's book Die Ehre dess Hertzogthums Crain (1689) there is "a good essay on floating islands and covers some examples mentioned by classical authors, the Lacus Sitticensis in Krain, Loch Lomond, Kashmir, East Friesland and Lago della Regina" (Van Duzer, p. 329). In the important work of Munz, Valvasor's book is cited three times, in the chapters 1.5, 2.7, and 2.14. In the notes the full explanation of these two examples is given.
In the Global Bibliography, where there are the references, it is very difficult, even impossible, to find out if karst is involved in the topic. One has to know the subject or go through the works. In some of them there is much more about karst than the title shows. A good example is given in the illustrations already: Figure 3 shows a floating island in Zacatón sinkhole (that is a cenote) near Aldama, Tamaulipas in Mexico.
So Van Duzer's book is not only a complete (or one of the most) bibliography on floating islands, but also an indispensable source of literature for everyone wishing to know different aspects of floating islands. The book is also a real treasure of literature sources to be browsed to find more about karst or to find more about the authors who write also of the karst topic. From the karstological point of view it is a pity that in some of the indices there are not mentioned karst features connected with floating islands. Maybe the book and the rich material gathered in it can be an impulse to somebody to work on it further from the karstological point of view. I am sure I can recommend this book to all, but especially to the readers who like old authors, from any point of aspect.
Andrej Kranjc