Technikatörténeti szemle 7. (1973-74)

MŰSZAKI SZAKMÚZEUMOK - Pál Vajda: Industrial Museums in Hungary (in English)

Ajka Mining Mussum nuous piece casting in operation represents the high level of 20th century metallurgy. The museum is in possession of the most valuable relic of Hungarian iron casting: a primitive iron smelting furnace of the 10th— 12th century, „in situ" of unique historical value. The oldest known relic of Hungarian iron casting from 1598 is an inqjressive cast iron board with three reliefs and inscription. An operating model of a 20th century ironworks, and an automatic tan dish represent the metallurgy of our days. The outstanding products of the 150 years of Hungarian steel making are illustrated by cast steel pieces and documentation. An original steel foundry with moulding machine, melting furnaces, casting moulds and crane recalls the first half of the 20th century, while the model of an operating automatic steel foundry gives a picture on steel casting today. The exhibition presents the chill casting plant founded by Ábrahám Ganz in 1845, in its state at its close-down in 1964, with the original equipment including cupola furnaces, ladles, moulding boxes, forming and casting facilities, cranes, axles mounted to tramways and trucks, manufactured in the workshop. The Foundry Museum, unique at world scale, gives a cross-section of metallurgy by showing workshops in their original form, as well as by artistic and industrial castings. The Central Mining Museum, one of the most interesting and richest collections is accomodated in the Esterházy Palace, Sopron, a masterpiece of baroque architecture. The collection gives a full picture on the history of mining from prehistoric primitive mining tools, the wedge and the hammer, through the working methods and equipment of later days, up to the last word in mining machinery. The 17th and 18th centuries brought a revolutionary turn in Hungarian mining. It was in 1627 that blasting was first used in this country. In 1735 the foundations