Technikatörténeti szemle 7. (1973-74)

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

of higher education in mining were laid, while in 1753 the Brennberg coal field was discovered and coal mining started in Hungary. These important events are represented on the murals of the museum, and by the photostat of the minutes of the first blasting in the Felsőbiber pit of Szélakna, on February 8th, 1627. The mining machines exhibited deserve particular attention. J. K. Hell senior engineer's water column pump constructed in 1749 and his forced ventilation system invented in 1753 are masterpieces of their period. Other rooms of the beautiful Palace display the material of modern mining. Regional exhibitions on the most important mining districts of Hungary are accomodated upstairs, in rooms and loggias overlooking the court. The Museum may pride with an exceptionally rich and interesting collection on the history of petroleum and natural gas processing in Hungary. The material exhibited reveals that Jakab Winterl, professor of chemistry at the Pest University was the first one all over the world, in 1788, to subject petroleum to scientific investigation, that professor Hugo Böckh was the first to develop a geophysical method for oil prospecting, and it was equally he who started explorations in Transdanubia, leading to the discovery of oil fields 20 years later. The rest of the exhibits are centred about noteworthy mines like Brennbergbánya, mining branches (oil mining) or individual stages of the working process like illumination, salvaging, winning, etc. The second Underground Goal Mining Museum in Europe was opened at Salgótarján, in 1965. The museum accomodated in the galleries of an abandoned shaft illustrates the tiresome dangerous and struggling ways that coal miners had to face in the past century. Visitors are shown the tools of early mining, the development of timbering, as well as the phases of illumination techniques, contrasted against up-to-date mining. In the coal-basin of Ajka the mining activity was approaching its centenary, when in 1959 mining was stopped at the Armin shaft. This shaft was opened in 1904 in the most beautiful side-valley of the Bakony Hills. This was the last shaft in Hungary using steam driven transport means. The bank-engine compartment, forge and cabin substation which all became idle, have suggested the idea to transform them into an open air museum at their original site. The Museum of Mining at Ajka was opened during the centenary celebrations of the mining at Ajka in 1959. The main building of the museum was originally housing the transport engine and it is a charakteristic example of such constructions at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century. The most valuable relic here is the Schlick-type twin steam engine still at its original place. It worked with plain slide valve control,, using a Stephenson-type operating gear, the diameter of the cylinder is 450 mm, it has a travel of 900 mm, a pressure of 8 atm, and a power of 150 HP. The maximum speed of the engine was 7 m /sec for the transportation of freight and 4 m /sec for man winding. It is still to be seen that the engine was equipped with all the required safety devices, with foot brake, depth indicator, a Karlik-type tachograph etc., being in active service until 1959. In this same buildings there is a single-cylinder reciprocating steam-engine too. This was used between 1904 and 1926 for driving the cable road above ground, later for transportation to the refuse dump and for driving the brake pump of the main transport engine. In the corner beside the door for the engine room the steam driven car lift drum is seen, which was originally in the boiler house of the Armin shaft closed in 1959. This was used to lift the cars transporting coal, from ground