← Atlas catalogue V3 · Sonnet

BochniaSalt-mining centre

Does salt mark the road to Czchów?

Salt from Bochnia, two towns and the present-day name of a trail are not yet a description of a haulage route. Such a description needs four things at once: the place where it starts, the place where it ends, the goods and the time. Below you can see which of them are supported by the materials of this source search. An acceptable result is: unconfirmed hypothesis.

Claim under examination: Salt went from Bochnia to Czchów

  1. 1 · Startpresent within the town’s scope
  2. 2 · Endmissing
  3. 3 · Goodscontext only
  4. 4 · Periodmissing

We do not draw a Bochnia–Czchów line: the bench holds 1 of 4 premises. The start is present only within the town’s scope.

Our own model, a diagram of premises, not a map: the length of the segments does not indicate distance. The state follows from the rules of this page and the descriptions of the materials, not from a new archival search. Change the claim and the materials ↓

CzchówHypothesis point

Evidence bench

Choose a claim, then place materials on the bench. The same materials mean something different for each claim, because what the claim requires of the evidence changes. The strip above a cell shows what the material provides; the label at the bottom of the cell says how much is needed. On a narrow screen a small result bar stays at the bottom edge of the bench, so placing a material and its effect can be seen in one window.

Without JavaScript the bench shows the default state: the claim about the Bochnia–Czchów connection and only the introduction to the atlas on the bench. Results for the other combinations are described in the “Explanation” section.

Claim under examination

Source search status

The Bochnia–Czchów connection remains unconfirmed.

Salt in Bochnia and a shared name for two towns do not yet make a connection. What is needed is one document that links both places, the goods and the time. On the bench: 1 of 4 premises in full, 1 as context only.

Missing: End, Period. Context only: Goods. Start only within the town’s scope (according to the description, the atlas links Bochnia with salt mining; it does not indicate that goods were sent to Czchów). Document sought: from the period, naming Bochnia, Czchów, salt and the time in one place.

On the bench: 1 of 3 materials

1. Atlas Historyczny Miast Polskich — Bochnia, wstęp [Historical Atlas of Polish Towns — Bochnia, introduction]

Scholarly study (per V1) · on the bench · source

  • Start confirms within scopeBochnia described as a town linked to salt mining.required
  • End absent from descriptionCzchów is not mentioned in the description of this material; to be checked in the full text.required
  • Goods context onlySalt as a product of mining in Bochnia, not a load on a route to Czchów.required
  • Period absent from descriptionNo date of haulage to Czchów in the description of the material.required

2. Plans of 1777 and 1847 — mentioned in the atlas introduction

Cartographic metadata (per V1), the plans themselves were not read · off the bench

  • Start context onlyThe existence of town plans; the course of the connection was not read from them.required
  • End absent from descriptionCzchów was not read from the plans’ metadata.required
  • Goods absent from descriptionCartographic metadata say nothing about loads.required
  • Period context only1777 and 1847 are the dates of the plans, not dates of salt haulage.required

3. Today’s trails — CIT Bochnia (Tourist Information Centre)

Promotional material from the 21st century (per V1) · off the bench · source

  • Start different categoryA present-day tourist offer, not a document recording the dispatch of goods.required
  • End different categoryToday’s trails; the description does not show that they prove a historical connection to Czchów.required
  • Goods different categorySalt in the name of a trail is the name of an offer, not a record of haulage.required
  • Period different categoryThe 21st century, that is a different period from the haulage under examination.required

Explanation

Four cell states

  • Confirms within scope: according to the description the material speaks to this premise, but only within its own scope, for example about Bochnia and not about the route.
  • Context only: the material is close to the subject but does not describe haulage.
  • Absent from description: the description of the material does not mention it. This means “to be checked in the full text”, not proof of absence and not zero.
  • Different category: the material concerns a present-day offer, so it cannot fulfil a premise about historical haulage.

What the claim changes

There is one rule: for each premise we compare the required level with the best level on the bench. The claim about the connection requires all four premises in full. The claim about mining in Bochnia needs the start in full and mere context for salt, while Czchów and the period lie outside it. The claim about today’s trail requires the same as the connection, plus an independent comparison of the routes.

For the connection and the trail, the Start from the atlas counts as present, but the strip at the top marks it “present within the town’s scope”: the atlas links Bochnia with salt mining and does not indicate that goods were sent from here to Czchów. An empty bench shows “not checked”, because that is a lack of data, not a missing premise.

The result has no percentages or points. The page does not read documents and does not assess anything: it shows what a claim requires and how much of that is in the described materials. That is why ticking all the boxes does not draw a line.

When we place all three materials at once

Salt went from Bochnia to Czchów
Remains unconfirmed. The Start is present (within the town’s scope, according to the atlas), Goods and Period are context only, and the End, that is Czchów, is missing. The material on today’s trail fulfils no premise.
Bochnia is linked to salt mining
Upheld within a narrow scope, according to the introduction to the atlas. This is a claim about the town and says nothing about a road to Czchów.
Today’s trail proves an old road
It does not. The present-day name of the trail is the subject of a comparison, not a document from the period.

Three things that are easy to confuse

The Bochnia–Czchów hypothesis
Unconfirmed in the V1 materials. The absence of a line on the map is here the correct result of the source search.
The pattern of four premises
Our teaching scheme for the completeness of a haulage description. It is not an archival method, nor a list that every document must satisfy.
A tourist trail with salt in its name
A 21st-century product according to the CIT material. The name of a trail is not a document of historical trade.

Limits of this page

What is not here

  • There is no road line, coordinates or elevations: an unverified polyline has not been published.
  • There are no photographs or scans of documents. A legally available extract of a source with a reference number is lacking, so in its place there is a description of the materials with a link.
  • The descriptions of the contents of the three materials come from earlier versions of the Atlas (V1 and V2) and have not been checked here against the full texts.

Do you have a document of your own?

Note the reference number and where it is kept, and leave the reading to an archivist or a historian of the region. V2 assessed such a document automatically on the basis of four fields, which simulated expert judgement. In V3 it has the status “for consultation”. Expert consultation can be commissioned and has not been carried out.

What has changed since V2

  • The researcher’s card was removed, with its automatic assessment of an entered document. The procedure above replaced it.
  • The protocol was removed, for copying and downloading, along with saving in browser memory. V3 neither reads nor deletes the key atlas-v2-68 if it was left over from V2.
  • Retained are three claims, three materials, four criteria and the rule of category conflict: today’s trail is not proof of an old road.
  • The reasoning was corrected: V2 treated the period as confirmed when the atlas and the plans lay on the bench. The dates 1777 and 1847 concern the plans, not haulage, so this is now context only.
  • The forms were swapped: the comparison table was replaced by a description of three easily confused things, and the drop-down list by three options visible next to the result.

Editorial status: V3 draft for review. The page has not been approved or verified for content.

Sources

The links were carried over from V2 and were not opened when V3 was built. The page works offline: they are ordinary links, not resources needed for display. The diagram of premises is our own illustration of the model, not a verified map.