Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 94. (Budapest 2002)

Matskási, I.: Bicentenary of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

Meteorite Collection Mainly the remaining part of the old legendary collection makes up the more than 650-piece meteorite collection. By virtue of their size, the iron meteorites of Canon Diablo (287 kg), Lenartov (73.6 kg) and the Cape of Good Hope (66 kg), while owing to its beauty the stone meteorite of Divina stand out of the collection that includes several well-known pieces of remarkable size. The Department staff pursue a very broad range of research work encompassing nearly the entire earth's crust, right from the surface down to the bottom of the crust, even covering the upper mantle that is located under the crust. Specialists with an interest in lithology tend to focus their research on the mineralogy and petrology of magmatites and sedimentary rocks as well as the lithology of altered rocks, lower crust, and upper mantle. The various branches of mineralogy involve soil mineralogy, topographic mineralogy and mineralography, and history of science. The outermost layer of the earth's crust is composed of soils generated from rocks. We assessed the role minerals generated in soils and inherited from rocks play in the generation of soils as well as their impact on rock characteristics. Mapping and familiarising with minerals occurring in Hungary involves a traditional field of research at the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology. Mineralography analyses the various characteristics of mineral species. From a geological point of view the Carpathian Basin is a young depression filled up with multi-kilometre thick sedimentary rock beds from glacial and Tertiary periods. Crude oil, natural gas, and thermal water exploratory drillings intersected the sedimentary beds and reached down as far as the basement right below them. The Department conducts intensive research aimed at clarifying the age and generation conditions of subsided, metamorphic rocks. Department of Geology and Palaeontology The collection based on the material donated by wife of FERENC SZÉCHÉNYI, JULIANNA FESTETICS, which presumably contained fossils as well, became later enriched by partly donated and partly purchased bigger or smaller collections. Of the donations, special mention should be made of Count PÁL SZAPÁRY's rich fossil collection (1809) and Archduke RAINER's collection that comprises glacial big mammals' bones of which he dispatched 'cartfuls' from the region of the river Tisza (1811). The 1821 'Catalogus Reinventationalis' features 777 petrifactions. Colonel JÁNOS GYURCSÁK's bequest (1834) throws some light on the diversity of collected items. It consisted of, among others, lapped precious stones, minerals, and fossils. Of the latter category the five well-preserved fish imprints he collected in the course of his military service at the world-famous Eocene deposit of Monte