The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1930-01-03


the northeast corner where Italy
l. and Austria meet that country, his
route follows the gray-green Sava
eastward to Zagreb, the old Agram of
Austro-Hungarian days. If one then
turns westward toward Fiume, the
sharp detour crosses the panorama Of
Croatfa's magnificently forested noun
tain country as the train climbs to the
regional watershed before descending
to the Adriatic.
The route holds it's surprises. I'm
agine mountain town halved by a
rushing river which p,unges 40 yards
into a crevasse under the sidewalk
and then, three miles farther on, pops
up unexpectedly, to resume its surface
course. Yet such fluvial feats char
-acteriZe not only Croatia, but the en-
tirety of those barren highlands which
extend southwark behind the Jugo-
slav coast.
They form the so-called Karst re-
giOn, which biologists have compared
to vast petrified sponge. Such are
the tricks that time and rushing
streams have played with the Karst's
easily decomposed limestone. snow
you see US and now you don't" CUR
| gle in chorus a whole system of such
| jack-in-the-boX rivers, as they plunge
into the mountains eastern flank, tri-
umphantly ressuing, scores of miles
westward, as feeders of estuaries or,
in one case, as a fresh-water spring
emerging from sea bottom.
Had some Marco Polo left us an &C.
count of the marvellous Land Of
Spongy Mountains, whose rivers cut
through the bases of ranges 1000 feet
high, we might have dismissed him
as fabulist; yet in sober fact a
Montengrin river has performed that
identical feat
While descending through the in
describably sterile looking Karst, one
puts to himself the question: "Why,
in this desert, build those innumer-
able, circular stone walls to inclose
at most bit of grass?"
Farming in Holes.
But you learn that what you see
are karst holes-extremely rich GASES
and that, in this land of jack-in-the-
box rivers, natural precipitation. in
stead Of draining into streams, sinks
through the porous stone, carrying
vegetable matter along with it, and
enriches a regional series Of funnel
like bitches. Thus, farming in holes"
the karst holes, which sometimes
number several hundred within a small
area-provides grain for the inhab-
itants of this mountain-side desert.
The binding, sizzling Karst comes
to a spectacular end when you espy
from nearly half a mile above, what
appears as a gigantic relief map, the
Istrian mountains curving around the
Gulf of Quarnero, and to the south
ward the Velebit mountains outfiung
ridge spanning the rim of illimitable
Adriatic blue.
In Fiume, you learn that the city
has its front doors on the sea and its
back doors among the mountains.
Any prospective visitor to Fiume
who may question this has only to
climb up 425 certain steps, taking them
in cool weather and ION low" He
will find himself among the city's
back doors, overlooking the Velebit
ridge. A turn about will give him an
airman's view of the terraced hillside
by which Fiume-Susak descends to
its far-stretched curve of wharfage;
and from ones feet there plunges
headlong the mere ribbon of water
that divides what is practically one
city into two ports, Fiume and Susak
the former in Italy, the latter in
Jugoslavia.
Probably no narrower stream than
the REGINA ever demarked so i'm
portant frontier. Its little, interna-
tionalized bridge, which is aptly SYM
bolized by the hyphen in "Fiume-
Susak," can be crossed in less than
one minute. You may dine In Italy
and take strolls in Jugoslavia between
courses. A baseball battery warming
up across the REGINA, with the pitcher
In Jugoslavia and the catcher in Italy,
would be spaced approximately at the
regulation distance.
When you buy and tussle with a
map of the Jugoslav coast, it will give
you that hopeless feeling which pos
sibly overcame the first explorer who
attempted to chart Names coast line.
Also, you will sympathize with that
other explorer, who, weary Of count
ing islands in the st. Lawrence, prob
ably said, "Oh, let's name 'em the
Thousand Islands and call 1t days
workp'
Queer Coast, Queer Names.
Even Names shores are rivaled In
their zigzag conformation by those of
Dalmatia. While direct course along
the Jugoslav littoral measures 800 sea
miles, the indented length of that
coast is almost three times as long.
AS for the man-sized job Of counting
Dalmatia's islands, that has been SIM
plified by ignoring Insignificant islets
and putting the archipelago's units at
600 and its area at 1900 square miles.
The locally published maps present
other difficulties. The kingdom Of the