Marek Prószyński

Marek Prószyński was born on 27 April 1906, in Warsaw, a son of the didactic activist, writer, and publisher Konrad Prószyński (alias Kazimierz Promyk). In 1932 he graduated of the University of Warsaw with a degree in geography and in 1934 he was promoted a doctor. In the latter part of his studies and in the following years he participated in the geological research of the Stanisław Lencewicz's group in Polesie and simultaneously served his apprenticeship as a geography teacher at Warsaw schools. In 1938 he took a post at the National Geologie Institute. After the subjugation of the Institute by the Nazis, he mined and delivered chalk in 1940-1941; then in 1942- 1944 he conducted the pedologie research under the guidance of T. Mieczyński . In 1945- 1956 he was employed in the Capital City Reconstruction Bureau as the Director of the Physiographic Laboratory. In 1956 he took a post at the Institute of Geography of the University of Warsaw. He organized the Department of the Soils Geography at the Chair of Physical Geography, he equipped it with the basic appliances and reagents, and with the help o chemists MChem. M. Hoff and MEng I. Dąbrowska he adopted the methodology of the chemical analysis of soils and grounds to the Institute's geography didactics. In 1974-76 he organized the Laboratory of Termoluminescence. He improved and simplified the modernly applied areometric method of assay of the granular composition of soils (so-called Prószyński's modification of the Casagrande's method). He edited the manuscriptal Map of the Surface Formations of the Warsaw Urban Agglomeration; and he participated in the preparation of the Map of the Polish Soils 1 :300 000 (Warsaw). He is the author of Historical study on changes in the Vistula river valley hetween Góra Kalwaria and Warsaw. In 1945- 1960 he taught at the Warsaw University of Life Science and in 1948- 1950 at the Technical University. During his work at the University of Warsaw he held courses on the soils geography and pedology, as well as on soil studies for engineers and physical geographic research methods for geographers and archaeologists (for a few years). He tutored 24 master's thesis and 3 doctor's dissertations. Docent Marek Prószyński died on 24 April 2003, in Warsaw.