Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)

Matskási, I. ; Vásárhelyi, T.: Celebrating the 100th volume of the Hungarian Natural History Museum’s yearbook

This is the reasoning behind Revue that is intended for foreign lands." Thus the objective of the journal was to promote science that is exercised in Hungarian and to make sure that foreign countries learn about our achievements. This first issue (booklet) of the first volume came out in 68 pages (of which number Revue accounted for 20) and we did not have to wait long before the second issue enlisted the institutions with which the journal entered into a partnership on an exchange basis (outside Hungary a total of 15 institutions were involved in England, Austria, Belgium, France, the USA, Russia, Germany, and Romania). By the end of the year when the fourth issue came out we could already pride ourselves with having as many as 28 exchange partners and what is more we kept urging our subscribers with unflagging enthusiasm to spread our reputation, thanks to which - in addition to promoting Hungarian achievements abroad - the scientists of the time could access the periodicals and journals Hungary received in exchange, which was of as great value back then as it is today. Just by way of an interposition: Hardly were the scientists who had to learn the journal's tonguetwisting Hungarian - Természetrajzi Füzetek (Natural History Booklets) the envy of the world. The four issues of the first volume, however, served right in striking some balance. The Revue - including German, English, French, and Latin texts - accounts for 75 pages (exactly 33%) of the 253 text pages in total. Even the Hungarian section contains a lot of Latin diagnosis: every new species is described in Latin first and then normally in Hungarian, as well. The first year saw 129 authors' fifty papers and 14 illustrated sheets with sophisticated coloured lithographic Tables in that number, as well (Fig. 1). Of the recent flora and fauna 36 new species of five genera became specified, but the book is not void of mineral and fossil species, either (Fig. 2). Besides taxonomic papers, various natural phenomena's descriptions and explanations were published, and every copy contained OTTÓ HERMAN'S impassioned papers on various subjects. The second issue ends with the following short message of the Museum to the world: The systemization of the Museums "Herbonisation Department" has reached a degree that the items of the collections of seed plants with ligneous stalk from the Carpathian basin (the collection of Lumnitzer, Wolny, Sadler, Frivaldszky, Albach and Kovács) are integrated, assigned, systemised by Endlicher s System and are available for on-site study only because the condition of these specimens renders their lending out