Botár Imre – Károlyi Zsigmond: Vásárhelyi Pál, a Tisza-szabályozás tervezője (Vízügyi Történeti Füzetek 2. Budapest, 1970)
Idegennyelvű kivonatok
public in the collection of documents published in 1880 by the DonauVerein in Vienna.) Subsequent river maps and plans of regulation works for the Danube have been prepared relying on the results of this survey. In the 1830-s Vásárhelyi started — in the interest of steam navigation and under the guidance of Széchenyi — the regulation of the Iron Gate and the other rapids on the Lower Danube, and constructed the Lower Danube Road excavated mostly in the steep rock face. (This road was named after Széchenyi.) The Iron Gate Barrage under construction will offer a permanent solution to safe navigation over this section and it may be of interest in this connection to remember the description and reviews in the contemporary engineering literature and to perpetuate thus the memory of the pioneers of this regulation, István Széchenyi and Pál Vásárhelyi. The number of papers published by Vásárhelyi is modest, but of considerable scientific value. His interest was first devoted to triangulation-, mapping and river regulation problems encountered in practice. The first general levelling of Hungary was subsequently completed under his guidance in 1843. The hydrometric measurements conducted in the 1830-s were among the first in the World, no earlier examples being known for steamflow determination by current-meter measurements at discrete points as was done by Vásárhelyi in the Budapest cross-section of the Danube. The paper compiled on the basis of detailed measurements, verifying the parabolic distribution of velocities in the vertical direction (,,A sebesség fokozatáról folyó vizeknél, felvilágosítva egy a Dunán mért keresztmetszés . . . által . . . különböző vízállásoknál" — „Ranges of velocity in flowing water, observed in a cross-section of the Danube at different stages") has been publisched in Hungarian only, in the Annals of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1845, and remained thus unknown outside Hungary. Yet, as pointed out by S. Kolupaila in his work , .Bibliography of ; Hydrometry" (Indiana, U.S.A. Univ. of Notre Dame, 1961, p. 15), one of the first representations of the rating curve has been published in this papef. The interesting paper by Vásárhelyi on the hydrological conditions of the Danube in the Budapest cross-section remained also inaccessible to engineers abroad. In recognition of his work he was elected in 1835 corresponding member and in 1838 ordinary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His most significant work was the preparation of the plans for the regulation of the Tisza River, which form the main subject of the present publication. While Széchenyi had been working on the preparation and organization of the regulation works these plans were considerably refined and improved by Vásárhelyi in 1845 and 1846. In this study the little known final form of the plans is discussed in detail, emphasising its practical and theoretical significance in the history of Hungarian hydraulic engineering. In harmony with the economic-political ideas of Széchenyi, the need for the comprehensive control of the entire Tisza Basin, for the co-ordinated
