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81-489: The Basin also contains a number of other minable resources, such as methane, cadmium, lead, silver and zinc. Coal depth is approximately 1,000 meters, and contains about 70 billion tons, with good extraction potential. Industrial areas within the Upper Silesian Coal Basin include the following: The Upper Silesian Coal Basin lies in a highland, between the upper Vistula and the upper Oder rivers. It

162-467: A summarium, or list of contents, at the beginning of the work that was later interpreted by modern printers as a table of contents. The table below is a summary based on modern names for topics. Pliny's purpose in writing the Natural History was to cover all learning and art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature. He says: My subject is a barren one –

243-756: A good and well-measured proxy for the economic growth of the Commonwealth. The owner of a folwark usually signed a contract with the merchants of Gdańsk, who controlled 80% of this inland trade, to ship the grain to Gdańsk. Many rivers in the Commonwealth were used for shipping, including the Vistula, which had a relatively well-developed infrastructure, with river ports and granaries . Most river shipping travelled north, with southward transport being less profitable, and barges and rafts often being sold off in Gdańsk for lumber. In order to arrest recurrent flooding on

324-484: A meal, which with him, as in the old days, was always a simple and light one, he would lie in the sun if he had any time to spare, and a book would be read aloud, from which he would take notes and extracts. Pliny the Younger told the following anecdote illustrating his uncle's enthusiasm for study: After dinner a book would be read aloud, and he would take notes in a cursory way. I remember that one of his friends, when

405-407: A model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index . Pliny's Natural History was written alongside other substantial works (which have since been lost ). Pliny (AD 23–79) combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian . Much of his writing

486-457: A painting, a salutary warning that too much effort can be counterproductive. Everything from "a salutary warning" onwards represents the ablative absolute phrase starting with "memorabili praecepto". Pliny wrote the first ten books in AD 77, and was engaged on revising the rest during the two remaining years of his life. The work was probably published with little revision by the author's nephew Pliny

567-572: A project was undertaken to increase the traffic-carrying capacity of the river upstream of Warsaw by building a number of locks in and around Kraków , this project was not extended further, so that navigability of the Vistula remains limited. The potential of the river would increase considerably if a restoration of the east–west connection via the Narew – Bug – Mukhovets – Pripyat – Dnieper waterways were considered. The shifting economic importance of parts of Europe may make this option more likely. Vistula

648-450: A view to their role in human life. Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value; the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture , sculpture , art , and jewellery . Pliny's premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the prevailing sentiment of his time. Pliny's work frequently reflects Rome's imperial expansion, which brought new and exciting things to

729-521: Is Marcus Terentius Varro . In the geographical books, Varro is supplemented by the topographical commentaries of Agrippa , which were completed by the emperor Augustus ; for his zoology , he relies largely on Aristotle and on Juba , the scholarly Mauretanian king, studiorum claritate memorabilior quam regno (v. 16). Juba is one of his principal guides in botany; Theophrastus is also named in his Indices, and Pliny had translated Theophrastus's Greek into Latin. Another work by Theophrastus, On Stones

810-535: Is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder . The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the Natural History compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history ; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure

891-454: Is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia . However, it does have structure: Pliny uses Aristotle's division of nature (animal, vegetable, mineral) to recreate the natural world in literary form. Rather than presenting compartmentalised, stand-alone entries arranged alphabetically, Pliny's ordered natural landscape is a coherent whole, offering the reader a guided tour: "a brief excursion under our direction among

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972-539: Is handled in Books XII to XVIII, with Theophrastus as one of Pliny's sources. The manufacture of papyrus and the various grades of papyrus available to Romans are described. Different types of trees and the properties of their wood are explained in Books XII to XIII. The vine, viticulture and varieties of grape are discussed in Book XIV, while Book XV covers the olive tree in detail, followed by other trees including

1053-432: Is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography , Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race, "for whose sake great Nature appears to have created all other things". This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History . The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, but also with

1134-1084: Is located mainly in the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland as well as extending into the Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic. The Upper Silesian Coal Basin includes the Silesian polycentric metropolitan area and has a population of 5,294,000 (with 4,311,000 in Poland and 983,000 in the Czech Republic). Area: 5,400 km² (in Poland - 4,500 km², in Czech Republic - 900 km²) or 5,600 km². 50°15′N 19°00′E  /  50.250°N 19.000°E  / 50.250; 19.000 Vistula The Vistula ( / ˈ v ɪ s tj ʊ l ə / ; Polish : Wisła [ˈviswa] ; German : Weichsel [ˈvaɪksl] )

1215-774: Is not like that of a modern encyclopedia . It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD ;79 eruption of Vesuvius . The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger . The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy , mathematics , geography , ethnography , anthropology , human physiology , zoology , botany , agriculture , horticulture , pharmacology , mining , mineralogy , sculpture , art , and precious stones . Pliny's Natural History became

1296-521: Is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at 1,047 kilometres (651 miles) in length. Its drainage basin , extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers 193,960 km (74,890 sq mi), of which 168,868 km (65,200 sq mi) is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland, 1,220 meters (4,000 ft) above sea level in

1377-726: Is the northern part of the proposed E40 waterway , continuing eastward into the Bug River , linking the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea . Large parts of the Vistula Basin were occupied by the Iron Age Lusatian and Przeworsk cultures in the first millennium BC. Genetic analysis indicates that there has been an unbroken genetic continuity of the inhabitants over the last 3,500 years. The Vistula Basin along with

1458-431: Is to be watchful", in a military metaphor of a sentry keeping watch in the night. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother: Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise. The Natural History

1539-608: The Defloratio Historiae Naturalis Plinii Secundi consisting of nine books of selections taken from an ancient manuscript. There are three independent classes of the stemma of the surviving Historia Naturalis manuscripts. These are divided into: The textual tradition /stemma was established by the German scholars J. Sillig , D. Detlefsen, L. von Jan, and K. Rück in the 19th century. Two Teubner Editions were published of 5 volumes;

1620-511: The Festival of Vulcan , not for luck but from his love of study, long before dawn; in winter he would commence at the seventh hour... He could sleep at call, and it would come upon him and leave him in the middle of his work. Before daybreak he would go to Vespasian – for he too was a night-worker – and then set about his official duties. On his return home he would again give to study any time that he had free. Often in summer after taking

1701-531: The Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta of six main branches ( Leniwka , Przekop , Śmiała Wisła , Martwa Wisła , Nogat and Szkarpawa ). The river has many associations with Polish culture , history and national identity. It is Poland's most important waterway and natural symbol , flowing notably through Kraków and the capital Warsaw , and the phrase "Country upon Vistula" ( Polish : kraj nad Wisłą ) can be synonymous with Poland. Historically,

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1782-602: The North Sea somewhere at the latitude of contemporary Scotland. The climate of the Vistula valley, its plants, animals, and its very character changed considerably during the process of glacial retreat. Vistula is navigable from the Baltic Sea to Bydgoszcz (where the Bydgoszcz Canal joins the river). It can accommodate modest river vessels of CEMT class II. Farther upstream the river depth lessens. Although

1863-804: The Oder river in Germany. After the war in late 1946, the former Austrian SS member Amon Göth was sentenced to death and hung on 13 September at the Montelupich Prison in Kraków, not far from the site of the Płaszów camp , the camp of which he was commandant throughout The Holocaust . His remains were cremated and the ashes thrown in the Vistula River. Pliny%27s Natural History The Natural History ( Latin : Naturalis Historia )

1944-699: The Silesian Beskids (western part of Carpathian Mountains ), where it begins with the White Little Vistula ( Biała Wisełka ) and the Black Little Vistula ( Czarna Wisełka ). It flows through Poland's largest cities, including Kraków , Sandomierz , Warsaw , Płock , Włocławek , Toruń , Bydgoszcz , Świecie , Grudziądz , Tczew and Gdańsk . It empties into the Vistula Lagoon ( Zalew Wiślany ) or directly into

2025-578: The Silver Age . His sentence structure is often loose and straggling. There is heavy use of the ablative absolute , and ablative phrases are often appended in a kind of vague "apposition" to express the author's own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g., dixit (Apelles) ... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam. This might be translated In one thing Apelles stood out, namely, knowing when he had put enough work into

2106-491: The 16th century most of the grain exported was leaving Poland through Gdańsk, which because of its location at the end of the Vistula and its tributary waterway and of its Baltic seaport trade role became the wealthiest, most highly developed, and by far the largest centre of crafts and manufacturing, and the most autonomous of the Polish cities. Other towns were negatively affected by Gdańsk's near-monopoly in foreign trade. During

2187-718: The Alpine zone to which the Alps and the Carpathians belong. The Vistula begins in the Carpathian mountains. The run and character of the river were shaped by ice sheets flowing down from the Scandinavian peninsula. The last ice sheet entered the area of Poland about 20,000 years ago. During periods of warmer weather, the ancient Vistula, "Pra-Wisła", searched for the shortest way to the sea—thousands of years ago it flowed into

2268-531: The Baltic area as a centre of merchants and trade and as a port city. At this time the surrounding lands were inhabited by Pomeranians , but Gdańsk soon became a starting point for German settlement of the largely fallow Vistulan country. Before its peak in 1618, trade increased by a factor of 20 from 1491. This factor is evident when looking at the tonnage of grain traded on the river in the key years of: 1491: 14,000; 1537: 23,000; 1563: 150,000; 1618: 310,000. In

2349-500: The German ). According to the most popular variant, popularized by the 15th-century historian Jan Długosz , Wanda, daughter of King Krak , became queen of the Poles upon her father's death. She refused to marry a German prince Rytigier (Rüdiger), who took offence and invaded Poland, but was repelled. Wanda however committed suicide , drowning in the Vistula River, to ensure he would not invade her country again. For hundreds of years

2430-558: The Moon is 230,000 miles away. He describes comets , noting that only Aristotle has recorded seeing more than one at once. Book II continues with natural meteorological events lower in the sky, including the winds, weather, whirlwinds, lightning, and rainbows. He returns to astronomical facts such as the effect of longitude on time of sunrise and sunset, the variation of the Sun's elevation with latitude (affecting time-telling by sundials), and

2511-577: The River Vistula and its valley spans over 2 million years. The river is connected to the geological period called the Quaternary , in which distinct cooling of the climate took place. In the last million years, an ice sheet entered the area of Poland eight times, bringing along with it changes of reaches of the river. In warmer periods, when the ice sheet retreated, the Vistula deepened and widened its valley. The river took its present shape within

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2592-635: The Vistula Lagoon, now for flood control closed to the east with a lock) and a west-flowing branch (the Danzig (Gdańsk) Vistula, Przegalinie branch, reached the sea in Danzig). Until the 14th century, the Elbing Vistula was the bigger. List of right and left tributaries with a nearby city, from source to mouth: According to flood studies carried out by Zbigniew Pruszak, who is the co-author of

2673-608: The Vistula and the Neman . It provided a link with the Black Sea to the south through the Oginski Canal , Dnieper River , Berezina Canal, and Dvina River . The Baltic Sea– Vistula– Dnieper– Black Sea route with its rivers was one of the most ancient trade routes, the Amber Road , on which amber and other items were traded from Northern Europe to Greece, Asia, Egypt , and elsewhere. The Vistula estuary

2754-458: The Vistula below this point is sometimes called the Leniwka . Various causes (rain, snow melt, ice jams ) have caused many severe floods of the Vistula over the centuries. Land in the area was sometimes depopulated by severe flooding, and later had to be resettled. See (Figure 7, on page 812 at History of floods on the River Vistula ) for a reconstruction map of the delta area as it was around

2835-641: The Younger , and this verdict largely explains the appeal of the Natural History since Pliny's death in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 . Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – "shaped like an umbrella pine", according to his nephew – rising from the mountain. The Natural History was one of the first ancient European texts to be printed, in Venice in 1469. Philemon Holland 's English translation of 1601 has influenced literature ever since. The Natural History consists of 37 books. Pliny devised

2916-531: The Younger, who, when telling the story of a tame dolphin and describing the floating islands of the Vadimonian Lake thirty years later, has apparently forgotten that both are to be found in his uncle's work. He describes the Naturalis Historia as a Naturae historia and characterises it as a "work that is learned and full of matter, and as varied as nature herself." The absence of

2997-410: The author's final revision may explain many errors, including why the text is as John Healy writes "disjointed, discontinuous and not in a logical order"; and as early as 1350, Petrarch complained about the corrupt state of the text, referring to copying errors made between the ninth and eleventh centuries. About the middle of the 3rd century, an abstract of the geographical portions of Pliny's work

3078-503: The border of his lands. In 1308 the Teutonic Knights captured the Gdańsk castle and murdered the population. Since then the event is known as the Gdańsk slaughter . The Order had inherited Gniew from Sambor II , thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula. Many granaries and storehouses, built in the 14th century, line the banks of the Vistula. In the 15th century the city of Gdańsk gained great importance in

3159-541: The capital: exotic eastern spices, strange animals to be put on display or herded into the arena, even the alleged phoenix sent to the emperor Claudius in AD 47 – although, as Pliny admits, this was generally acknowledged to be a fake. Pliny repeated Aristotle's maxim that Africa was always producing something new. Nature's variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite: "When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible." This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on

3240-482: The confluences with the Narew river and the Bug river; and bottom, from the confluence with Narew to the sea. The Vistula river basin covers 194,424 square kilometres (75,068 square miles) (in Poland 168,700 square kilometres (65,135 square miles)); its average altitude is 270 metres (886 feet) above sea level . In addition, the majority of its river basin (55%) is 100 to 200 m above sea level; over 3 ⁄ 4 of

3321-651: The course of their offensive and were waiting on the other side of the Vistula River in full force, would help in the battle for Warsaw. However, the Soviets let down the Poles, stopping their advance at the Vistula and branding the insurgents as criminals in radio broadcasts. In early 1945, in the Vistula–Oder Offensive , the Red Army crossed the Vistula and drove the German Wehrmacht back past

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3402-589: The decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War Battle of Warsaw (sometimes referred to as the Miracle at the Vistula ), was fought as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and nearby Modlin Fortress by the river's mouth. The Polish September campaign included battles over control of the mouth of the Vistula, and of the city of Gdańsk, close to

3483-580: The edges of the world. These monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae , whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi , who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned in the fifth century BC by Greek historian Herodotus (whose history was a broad mixture of myths , legends , and facts), but Pliny made them better known. "As full of variety as nature itself", stated Pliny's nephew, Pliny

3564-569: The eighth century, some of which coalesced later into larger ones. Among the tribes listed in the Bavarian Geographer 's ninth-century document was the Vistulans ( Wiślanie ) in southern Poland. Kraków and Wiślica were their main centres. Many Polish legends are connected with the Vistula river and the beginnings of Polish statehood . One of the most enduring is that about Princess Wanda co nie chciała Niemca ( who rejected

3645-492: The first by L. von Jan (1856-78; see external links ) and the second by C. Mayhoff (1892-1906). The most recent critical editions were published by Les Belle Letters (1950-). All 5th century: Definite descendants of E (Paris lat. 6795): Possible descendants of E: Copies of E: Cousin of E: Independent earlier tradition: The work was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed , at Venice in 1469 by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer , but J.F. Healy described

3726-464: The greatness of Julius Caesar , outstanding people such as Hippocrates and Asclepiades , happiness and fortune. Zoology is discussed in Books VIII to XI. The encyclopedia mentions different sources of purple dye, particularly the murex snail, the highly prized source of Tyrian purple . It describes the elephant and hippopotamus in detail, as well as the value and origin of the pearl and

3807-419: The invention of fish farming and oyster farming . The keeping of aquariums was a popular pastime of the rich, and Pliny provides anecdotes of the problems of owners becoming too closely attached to their fish. Pliny correctly identifies the origin of amber as the fossilised resin of pine trees. Evidence cited includes the fact that some samples exhibit encapsulated insects, a feature readily explained by

3888-597: The lands of the Rhine , Danube , Elbe , and Oder came to be called Magna Germania by Roman authors of the first century AD. This does not imply that the inhabitants were " Germanic peoples " in the modern sense of the term; Tacitus , when describing the Venethi , Peucini and Fenni , wrote that he was not sure if he should call them Germans, since they had settlements and they fought on foot, or rather Sarmatians since they have some similar customs to them. Ptolemy , in

3969-516: The last 14,000 years, after the complete recession of the Scandinavian ice sheet from the area. At present, along with the Vistula valley, erosion of the banks and collecting of new deposits are still occurring. As the principal river of Poland, the Vistula is also in the centre of Europe. Three principal geographical and geological land masses of the continent meet in its river basin: the Eastern European Plain , Western Europe, and

4050-581: The lower Vistula, the Prussian government in 1889–95 constructed an artificial channel about 12 kilometres (7 miles) east of Gdańsk (German name: Danzig )—known as the Vistula Cut (German: Weichseldurchstich ; Polish: Przekop Wisły )—that acted as a huge sluice, diverting much of the Vistula flow directly into the Baltic . As a result, the historic Vistula channel through Gdańsk lost much of its flow and

4131-526: The means of one's own achievements." In the preface, the author claims to have stated 20,000 facts gathered from some 2,000 books and from 100 select authors. The extant lists of his authorities cover more than 400, including 146 Roman and 327 Greek and other sources of information. The lists generally follow the order of the subject matter of each book. This has been shown in Heinrich Brunn 's Disputatio ( Bonn , 1856). One of Pliny's authorities

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4212-467: The mouth, where the river Nogat splits off. The Nogat also starts separately as a river named (on this map ) Alte Nogat (Old Nogat) south of Kwidzyn , but further north it picks up water from a crosslink with the Vistula, and becomes a distributary of the Vistula, flowing away northeast into the Vistula Lagoon (Polish: Zalew Wiślany) with a small delta. The Nogat formed part of the border between East Prussia and interwar Poland. The other channel of

4293-603: The name Istula . Ammianus Marcellinus referred to the Bisula (Book   22) in the 380s. In the sixth century Jordanes ( Getica   5 & 17) used Viscla . The Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to the Wistla . The 12th-century Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek Latinised the river's name as Vandalus , a form presumably influenced by Lithuanian vanduõ 'water'. Jan Długosz (1415–1480) in his Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae contextually points to

4374-413: The presence of a viscous resin. Pliny refers to the way in which it exerts a charge when rubbed, a property well known to Theophrastus. He devotes considerable space to bees , which he admires for their industry, organisation, and honey , discussing the significance of the queen bee and the use of smoke by beekeepers at the hive to collect honeycomb . He praises the song of the nightingale . Botany

4455-541: The reader pronounced a word wrongly, checked him and made him read it again, and my uncle said to him, "Did you not catch the meaning?" When his friend said "yes," he remarked, "Why then did you make him turn back? We have lost more than ten lines through your interruption." So jealous was he of every moment lost. Pliny's writing style emulates that of Seneca . It aims less at clarity and vividness than at epigrammatic point. It contains many antitheses , questions, exclamations, tropes , metaphors , and other mannerisms of

4536-534: The reign of Stephen Báthory Poland ruled two main Baltic Sea ports: Gdańsk controlling the Vistula river trade and Riga controlling the Western Dvina trade. Both cities were among the largest in the country. Around 70% the exports from Gdańsk were of grain. Grain was also the largest export commodity of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . The volume of traded grain can be considered

4617-491: The river Vistla (4.81, 4.97, 4.100). The root of the name Vistula is often thought to come from Proto-Indo-European * weys- : 'to ooze, flow slowly' (cf. Sanskrit अवेषन् avēṣan "they flowed", Old Norse veisa "slime"), and similar elements appear in many European river-names (e.g. Svislach (Berezina) , Svislach (Neman) , Weser , Viešinta ). In writing about the river and its peoples, Ptolemy uses Greek spelling: Ouistoula . Other ancient sources spell

4698-601: The river basin (right-hand to left-hand side) is 73–27%. The most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch , which ended around 10,000 BC, is called the Vistulian glaciation or Weichselian glaciation in regard to north-central Europe. The river forms a wide delta called Żuławy Wiślane , or the "Vistula Fens" in English. The delta currently starts around Biała Góra near Sztum , about 50 km (31 mi) from

4779-606: The river basin ranges from 100 to 300 metres (328 to 984 feet) in altitude. The highest point of the river basin is at 2,655 metres (8,711 feet) (Gerlach Peak in the Tatra mountains ). One of the features of the river basin of the Vistula is its asymmetry—in great measure resulting from the tilting direction of the Central European Lowland toward the northwest, the direction of the flow of glacial waters, and considerable predisposition of its older base. The asymmetry of

4860-589: The river delta. During the Invasion of Poland (1939) , after the initial battles in Pomerelia , the remains of the Polish Army of Pomerania withdrew to the southern bank of the Vistula. After defending Toruń for several days, the army withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the main battle of Bzura . The Auschwitz complex of concentration camps

4941-405: The river was also important for the Baltic and German ( Prussian ) peoples. The Vistula has given its name to the last glacial period that occurred in northern Europe, approximately between 100,000 and 10,000 BC, the Weichselian glaciation . The name Vistula first appears in the written record of Pomponius Mela (3.33) in AD   40. Pliny in AD   77 in his Natural History names

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5022-419: The river was one of the main trading arteries of Poland, and the castles that line its banks were highly prized possessions. Salt , timber , grain , and building stone were among goods shipped via that route between the 10th and 13th centuries. In the 14th century the lower Vistula was controlled by the Teutonic Knights Order, invited in 1226 by Konrad I of Masovia to help him fight the pagan Prussians on

5103-534: The river, stating "of the eastern nations, of the Polish east, from the brightness of the water the White Water...so named" ( Alba aqua ), perhaps referring to the White Little Vistula ( Biała Wisełka ). In the course of history the river has borne similar names in different languages: German: Weichsel ; Low German : Wießel ; Dutch : Wijsel [ˈʋɛisəl] ; Yiddish : ווייסל Yiddish pronunciation: [ˈvajsl̩] ; and Russian : Висла , romanized :  Visla . Vistula rises in

5184-419: The scientific paper Implications of SLR and further studies carried out by scientists attending Poland's Final International ASTRA Conference, and predictions stated by climate scientists at the climate change pre-summit in Copenhagen , it is highly likely most of the Vistula Delta region (which is below sea level ) will be flooded due to the sea level rise caused by climate change by 2100. The history of

5265-401: The second century AD, would describe the Vistula as the border between Germania and Sarmatia . Vistula River used to be connected to the Dnieper River , and thence to the Black Sea via the Augustów Canal , a technological marvel with numerous sluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. It was the first waterway in Central Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers,

5346-456: The southern Silesian Voivodeship close to the tripoint involving the Czech Republic and Slovakia from two sources: Czarna ("Black") Wisełka at altitude 1,107 m (3,632 ft) and Biała ("White") Wisełka at altitude 1,080 m (3,540 ft). Both are on the western slope of Barania Góra in the Silesian Beskids in Poland. Vistula can be divided into three parts: upper, from its sources to Sandomierz ; central, from Sandomierz to

5427-436: The subject. Pliny studied the original authorities on each subject and took care to make excerpts from their pages. His indices auctorum sometimes list the authorities he actually consulted, though not exhaustively; in other cases, they cover the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand from his immediate authorities. He acknowledges his obligations to his predecessors: "To own up to those who were

5508-431: The territory of interbellum Poland was drained northward into the Baltic Sea by the Vistula (total area of drainage basin of the Vistula within boundaries of the Second Polish Republic was 180,300 km (69,600 sq mi), the Niemen (51,600 km  [19,900 sq mi]), the Oder (46,700 km  [18,000 sq mi]) and the Daugava (10,400 km  [4,000 sq mi]). In 1920

5589-503: The translation as "distinctly imperfect". A copy printed in 1472 by Nicolas Jenson of Venice is held in the library at Wells Cathedral . Philemon Holland made an influential translation of much of the work into English in 1601. John Bostock and H. T. Riley made a complete translation in 1855. The Natural History is generally divided into the organic plants and animals and the inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section. The encyclopedia also notes

5670-463: The uses made of all of these by the Romans. Its description of metals and minerals is valued for its detail in the history of science , being the most extensive compilation still available from the ancient world. Book I serves as Pliny's preface, explaining his approach and providing a table of contents. The first topic covered is Astronomy, in Book II. Pliny starts with the known universe, roundly criticising attempts at cosmology as madness, including

5751-437: The variation of day length with latitude. In Books III to VI, Pliny moves to the Earth itself. In Book III he covers the geography of the Iberian peninsula and Italy; Book IV covers Europe; Book V looks at Africa and Asia, while Book VI looks eastwards to the Black Sea, India and the Far East. Book VII discusses the human race, covering anthropology and ethnography , aspects of human physiology and assorted matters such as

5832-593: The view that there are countless other worlds than the Earth. He concurs with the four (Aristotelian) elements, fire, earth, air and water, and records the seven "planets" including the Sun and Moon. The Earth is a sphere, suspended in the middle of space. He considers it a weakness to try to find the shape and form of God, or to suppose that such a being would care about human affairs. He mentions eclipses, but considers Hipparchus 's almanac grandiose for seeming to know how Nature works. He cites Posidonius 's estimate that

5913-454: The whole of the works of nature ..." The work is unified but varied: "My subject is the world of nature ... or in other words, life," he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a pantheistic concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy , which underlies much of his thought, but the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race: "nature, that is life"

5994-502: The world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, nay barbarian words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one of us who has made the same venture, nor yet one among the Greeks who has tackled single-handed all departments of

6075-572: The year 1300: note much more water in the area, and the west end of the Vistula Lagoon (Frisches Haff) was bigger and nearly continuous with the Drausen See . As with some aggrading rivers, the lower Vistula has been subject to channel changing. Near the sea, the Vistula was diverted sideways by coastal sand as a result of longshore drift and split into an east-flowing branch (the Elbing (Elbląg) Vistula, Elbinger Weichsel, Szkarpawa, flows into

6156-596: Was at the confluence of the Vistula and the Soła rivers. Ashes of murdered Auschwitz victims were dumped into the river. During World War II prisoners of war from the Nazi Stalag XX-B camp were assigned to cut ice blocks from the River Vistula. The ice would then be transported by truck to the local beer houses. The 1944 Warsaw Uprising was planned with the expectation that the Soviet forces, who had arrived in

6237-600: Was cited as a source on ores and minerals . Pliny strove to use all the Greek histories available to him, such as Herodotus and Thucydides , as well as the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus . His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the method that Pliny used to write the Natural History : Does it surprise you that a busy man found time to finish so many volumes, many of which deal with such minute details?... He used to begin to study at night on

6318-421: Was done at night; daytime hours were spent working for the emperor, as he explains in the dedicatory preface addressed to Vespasian's elder son, the future emperor Titus , with whom he had served in the army (and to whom the work is dedicated). As for the nocturnal hours spent writing, these were seen not as a loss of sleep but as an addition to life, for as he states in the preface, Vita vigilia est , "to be alive

6399-788: Was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula (German: Tote Weichsel ; Polish: Martwa Wisła ). German states acquired complete control of the region in 1795–1812 (see: Partitions of Poland ), as well as during the World Wars, in 1914–1918 and 1939–1945. From 1867 to 1917, after the collapse of the January Uprising (1863–1865), the Russian tsarist administration called the Kingdom of Poland the Vistula Land . Almost 75% of

6480-467: Was produced by Solinus . Early in the 8th century, Bede , who admired Pliny's work, had access to a partial manuscript which he used in his " De natura rerum ", especially the sections on meteorology and gems . However, Bede updated and corrected Pliny on the tides . There are about 200 extant manuscripts, but the best of the more ancient manuscripts, that at Bamberg State Library , contains only books XXXII–XXXVII. In 1141 Robert of Cricklade wrote

6561-457: Was settled by Slavs in the seventh and eighth century. Based on archeological and linguistic findings, it has been postulated that these settlers moved northward along the Vistula River. This however contradicts another hypothesis supported by some researchers saying the Veleti moved westward from the Vistula delta. A number of West Slavic Polish tribes formed small dominions beginning in

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