222 Contributions to Physical Geography. 



subterranean foes, by joining its waters to those of the more 

 formidable Save. 



The origin of this subterraneous river, which during the 

 thaws in the beginning of summer, and the rains of autumn, 

 pours forth from the jaws of the cavern at Planina a mass of 

 water so much superior to the capacity of the apertures which 

 drink it up at the northern extremity, that the whole valley, 

 bounded as it is on both sides by rocky eminences, is convert- 

 ed into a romantic lake, has not yet been satisfactorily ascer- 

 tained. The more general opinion holds it to be the Poick, 

 a river which throws itself into the mountain at Adelsberg, 

 about nine miles south of Planina, and at a considerably high- 

 er elevation. This is likewise the more probable hypothesis. 

 The body of water in both, at the time I saw them, was alike, 

 and its somewhat muddy colour was the same. The course 

 of the Poick, where it disappears in the mountain at Adels- 

 berg, is to the north ; Planina lies in the same direction, and 

 much lower. According to the other hypothesis, which has 

 been started of late years, the Poick, instead of reappearing 

 through the portal of Planina, and sending its waters by the 

 Save and the Danube to the Black Sea, turns to the westward 

 beneath ground ; reappears, after a subterraneous course of 

 twenty miles, in the sources of the Wippach, on the western 

 confines of Carniola ; pours itself under this name into the 

 Lisonzo, and is thus finally lost in the Adriatic. The Poick 

 being thus disposed of, the river of Planina is declared to be 

 a subterraneous outlet of the neighbouring lake of Zirknitz. 

 The hypothesis is entirely gratuitous. The Wippach, it is 

 true, has a similar origin ; but we have the Idria, the Jersen, 

 and various other streams in every corner of these calcareous 

 hills. It is said, that pieces of wood and other light bodies, 

 which have been thrown into the Poick at Adelsberg, have 

 reappeared in the AVippach, but such on dits are always of 

 doubtful credibility. It is said, for instance, that a travelling 

 cooper, who had suffered shipwreck in the Strudel, or whirl- 

 pool of the Danube, above Vienna, afterwards found part of 

 his equipage floating on the lake of Neusiedel in Hungary, 

 and the people of the country still believe that a subterraneous 

 communication exists between the river and the lake. If the 



