Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 6. (Budapest 1955)
Boros, I.: The paleontological exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum - Museum of Natural History
The Paleontological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum —Museum of Natural History By I. Boros, Budapest Of the Exhibitions opened by the Hungarian Natural History Museum in the years since 1945, the iirst had been a display on general evolution, set up in a small hall, and opened to public attendance in 1949. A travelling exhibition had also been made within the frames of the same theme and in the same year, yet all these had, by the opinions of both ours and others, satisfied but in a meagre way that interest which had been manifested in increased proportions for just these kind of problems of natural history in the fast pace of reconstruction and transformations bearing on every phase of our lives. We had therefore been tempted from the first to build a bigger exhibition concerning the evolution of the living world in appropriate frames and in larger details, to make comprehensively accessible and plain all the trustworthy results gained and established by the relevant researches in this regard for all those who turn with understandable curiosity toward such problems. Owing to pressing circumstances, we had first considered, — and this was also the view of the proper authorities, — the re-setting with some smaller alterations of the former (and for our aims best adapted) paleontological exhibition of the Museum, augmented by substantial additions to the older material ,in 1938. After a thorough deliberation of the problem, however, we could not find this a satisfactory solution, since we made it an important point, as in the cases of all of the other exhibitions of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, to conform to the view that the material on display should reflect not its own history alone, but that of the scientific outlook of our era too. It should not only registrate the history of the Earth and Life and to astonish its visitors by tne display of biologically striking forms, but also to radiate the modern scientific concept espoused by a progressive natural science. This is how we built, on the base of our paleontological exhibition, a new one ; not only rearranged but constructed anew/according to completely new prospects, titled »The evolutional history of the Earth and Life*, and opened to the public on the first of June, 1954. And, since we well know that the problem of how the overcrowded and poorly instructive material of old paleontological exhibitions should be renewed, we will now endeavour to show, in the followings, our solution of the problem. I. The material at our disposal did not abound in so-called sensational sights. In the Paleontological Collections of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, a very valuable material had accrued, primarily, of course, of home finds ; but there is also a considerable amount of purchased foreign fossils, especially from the Jurassic and later geological eras. The material of our former shows had mainly consisted of these. Our Paleontological Department can boast of also various uniques, but the most effective sights of the exhibitions, that is, collections : fossils skeletons of the enormous reptiles and mammals presentable in their completeness are wholly lacking. We had to make allowances for this circumstance in the drawing of our plans, selecting a method of compensation 27 Term. Tud. Múzeum Évkönyve
