Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 8. (Budapest 1957)

Boros, I.: The tragedy of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

tions of European fame in later times. And, from the very beginning, this is the Department that always remained, owing to the valuable material it contained, the one most jealously guarded in the Museum. Its stock approached 150 000 items at the time of the catastrophe. Its development, especially from the 'forties of the last century, was very rapid and, up to the beginning of World War I, it became a Collection of ever greater significance, indeed of world-fame, in an almost uniform rate. Aside of its oldest pieces, its main stock consisted of the mineral collection of I. S z á jb é 1 y purchased in 1839, of the crystal collection of A. F a u s e r bought in in 1842, and of the minerals presented by the families B r u n s w i c k—F o rr a y—C h o t e k. In 1870, it was further enriched by the' collection of 34 000 items purchased from J. Lobkowitz, and the gold-collection containing the most beautiful Verespatak golds of Weiss also shortly became its property. Its further augmentation is closely connected with the name of A. S e m s e y, the greatest Hungarian Maecenas. By almost unlimited financial generosity, he covered the purchases of various collections, so, among others, those of Eszterház y, Schuhard t, Schöffe 1, Frenze 1, Uzlár, Lhotzky, No r p e and S p i n d e r, and defrayed also the expenses of the purchases of rarely beautiful mineral presents, B. Széchényi, L. Lóczy and Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, enriched the Department in a more significant measure. The latter presented the Museum with a rich marble collection. It goes without saying that the valuable material collected at home and abroad by the research workers of the Department have also contributed to the growing of the Collection. Exchange with all parts of the world, together with private and state support, our Mineralogical Department became not only the biggest Collection of Hungary but one of the richest in Europe. A picture drawn sketchily of our losses is the following. Wholly annihilated were the singularly beautiful diamond crystals from the Cape, Brasil and Eastern India, the very valuable copy of the crude Cullinan specimen together with the glass imitations of the biggest diamonds, all in the original color and cut. The first-class graphite specimens from Ceylon and Siberia were all pulverised. Entirely pulverised are now the finest home and abroad pieces of native tellurium, antimony, arsenic and bismuth, the specimens of native (terrastrial) iron, the rarely beautiful big crystals of native sulphur acquired from Sicily, and the same from Káinok, Rodoboy, and the ß sulphur, from Recsk, crystallized in the monocline system. Destroyed or melted together are the exquisitely fine pieces of the gold collection from Verespatak, and the same fate befell the magnificent specimens of native silver and cuprum ; of the antimonites, the famous Felsőbánya and Kisbánya pieces, as also the gigantic crystals (40 cm long 5 cm thick) from Sikoku, Japan. The destruction of the unique wehrlite crystal found in the Mts. Börzsöny is an inestimable loss. This mineral is known, namely, from this and every other place, in a massive form only. The wonderful specimens of Au., Ag., Pb., Te. minerals from the Transsylvanián Érchegység are irretrievable losses ; some of these were first described from this area (hessite, petzite, nagyágite, sylvanite, krennerite, semseyite, andorite), the famous freieslebenite and diaphorite pieces from Felsőbánya and the pirrhotine crystals from Kisbánya, the argirodite pieces containing Ge, from Freiberg. The few laurionite specimens are also a great loss ; these were formed from the prehistroic lead dross by the action of marine salts near Laurium during 2000 years. Our colorful fluorites, the cryolite and related crystals from