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“He was a dazzling figure, Adolf Schmidl,” says Johannes Mattes, historian at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and speleologist, about the old master of speleology. Schmidl, born in Bohemia in 1802, attended the academic high school in Vienna, studied law before becoming an educator to Prince Lobkowitz in 1833. In 1844 he received his doctorate in philosophy and published (until 1848) the “Österreichische Blatter für Literatur und Kunst”. Schmidl was a busy researcher and geographer and put a lot of things down on paper. His preferred medium was the "Wiener Zeitung", of which he was editor-in-chief from July 1 to mid-October 1848. Here he published numerous articles about the karst and caves from the 1850s onwards.
Schmidl was the first actuary of the Academy of Sciences, founded in 1847, and also a member of the Vienna City Council. From 1857 he held a professorship for geography, statistics and history at the k. k. Josefs Polytechnicum in Ofen (Hungarian: Buda) (today: Budapest district). He died here on November 20, 1863. His travel descriptions, which he published from the 1830s onwards, are more widely known, including "Vienna's surroundings on a twenty-hour radius" from 1835.
No less interesting is the description of his soft skills from the pen of Heinrich Wallmann: "Schmidl's external appearance was impressive; he had a tall and handsome figure, brown hair, a sonorous, magnificent voice, was an excellent baritone singer, an excellent speaker, an excellent teacher, but also a careful family man. He had excellent mental and emotional qualities, brilliant talents, a fundamentally honest, cheerful and amiable character and an ambitious, energetic and stimulating nature." Schmidl was successful in three ways - as a writer and therefore a pioneer of scientific activities in the Vormärz, then as a geographer and Alpine explorer and finally as a cave explorer in the monarchy.
His cave research began in the summer of 1850 as a commission from the k. k. Geological Reichsanstalt. Schmidl set off for Slovenia in August and, among other things, examined the Reka, a river that flows more than 35 kilometers underground, in the karst there. He also explored Lake Zirknitz, which keeps drying out thanks to underground drains, and the Adelsberg Grotto in detail. He sent his observations to Vienna and published them in the eight-part series "The Caves of the Karst" in the "Wiener Zeitung" during his field research.
The next few years were primarily devoted to exploring caves. Schmidl, to whom the term "spelunking" comes from, became a formative pioneer of speleology - it was no coincidence that he was nicknamed "Höhlen-Schmidl".
In Schmidl's research in the Karst, in addition to the question of the underground navigability of the Karst rivers, the main focus was on tourism aspects; one focus was the Adelsberg Grotto, for which he wrote a guide. He saw great potential in cave tourism: "... this way you can only provide the most favorable prognosis for the areas of Inner Carniola that are so rich in natural wonders but otherwise poor." In 1850 he pinned his hopes on the expansion of the railway: "In 22 hours you can get from Vienna to Laibach; once the railway is completed you will be in the center of these natural wonders in 24 hours." Today the Adelsberg cave, the Postojnska jama as it is called in Slovenian, is a tourist attraction. The Škocjan Caves, also in the Slovenian Karst, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and can also be visited as show caves. Schmidl would have been happy.
Ever since Eduard Suess used the karst water from the Rax and Schneeberg area in Lower Austria for the First Vienna High Spring Pipeline, which was opened in 1873, the importance of the karst cavities for drinking water supply has been beyond doubt. The cities of Salzburg and Graz also get their drinking water from karst springs, be it from Untersberg or Hochschwab.
"With around 17,500 caves that have been surveyed and recorded, Austria can also be described as the 'land of caves', as around 400 more are discovered every year," says Christoph Spötl (University of Innsbruck) outlining Austria from a speleological perspective. There he heads the Innsbruck Quaternary Research Group at the Institute of Geology. Their focus is on researching the most recent 2.6 million years of Earth's history (= Quaternary). Specifically, it is sinter formations, i.e. stalactites, that are analyzed in detail. From the values of the carbon and oxygen isotopes, statements can be made about the former vegetation above the cave as well as the regional climate, going back hundreds of thousands of years in time.
The second speleological focus with academic expertise is in Vienna. On the one hand at the Natural History Museum with the karst and cave working group, on the other hand at the University of Vienna. Research into the fossil fauna of caves with a focus on cave bears has a long tradition at the Institute of Paleontology.
The International Year of Caves and Karst (IYCK), an initiative of the International Association for Speleology, planned for 2021, aims to raise awareness of this topic among the general public under the motto "Explore, Understand and Protect". This is in view of the fact that many people's everyday lives are closely linked to this - keyword: drinking water supply. It is also important to establish connections with responsible tourism and natural/cultural heritage.
It doesn't need to be emphasized that Austria has a large share in the area of karst and caves. This also involves responsible handling of the sensitive karst and cave systems; this cannot be emphasized often enough and must by no means be limited to 2021. (Thomas Hofmann, March 25, 2021)