Dr. Balázs Dénes szerk.: Földrajzi Múzeumi Tanulmányok 8. (Magyar Földrajzi Múzeum; Érd, 1990)

ÉRTEKEZÉSEK - Dr. Balázs Dénes: Magyar utazók Ausztráliában

area. One night Mednyánszky was attacked and a bullet of the bandit totally shattered the bones in his elbow, and his left arm had to be amputated. He returned to France, having lost all hope, he committed suicide at the age of 34. His memoirs were published first in London in English, then in Hungary. A more fortunate fate fell to the lot of another Hungarian refugee, Sigismund Vékey. He served in the rank of captain in the Hungarian insurrectionist army and was the adjutant of Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the War of Independence. In 1854 he, too, tried his luck with gold-digging in Australia. Later he took up farming and became one of the founders of the famous South Australian viniculture. He founded a wine-growing company and also pursued literary activity. In 1876 Vékey returned home and published his Australian experiences. By the end of the 19th century the distant lands of Australia became better known in Hungary as more and more people were able to go there. One of the most prominent travellers was Stephen Goetzel, a mining engineer. According to the librarian, Egon F. Kunz, "in 1888, Goetzel went first to Queensland, than to Tasmania, and in 1892 he sailed to Western Australia. He travelled by camel over the Murchison goldfields. Then he commissioned by the Western Australian government, Goetzel undertook two expeditions. On his first in the Espérance

—Bayley's Reward area, he predicted in his report the auriferous potenciál of the Red Kangaroo Hill and Norseman area. On his second expedition, Goetzel covered the Bayley's Reward

—Menzies area". A Hungarian sea-surgeon, Ferenc Gáspár, by the end of the 19th century visited the major ports of Australia and wrote a richly illustrated ornamental book on Australia. Another Hungarian author, Károly Gubányi, an engineer, bought a seven hundred acre shrubland between the Murray and the Murrumbidgee Rivers, and within seven years, Szent-Iványi József az elmaradhatatlan szivarjával he replaced the wild with a modern farm. But he also was overcome by homesickness, and returned home in 1913. Still at his Riverina farm he compiled a detailed geography and history of Australia, which was published in the Hungarian Geographical Society's ornamental series. In the 20th century, many Hungarian travellers and Australian residents of Hungarian origin achieved outstanding results in the scientific research in Australia (Lajos Bíró, Géza Róheim, J.J.

H. Szent-lvány, Alexander Gallus etc.). Several Hungarians living in Australia have made it even to the icy Antarctic (the physician János Boda and István Csordás). FELHÍVÁS A Magyar Földrajzi Múzeum szeretné összegyűjteni az ország egész területéről a magyar utazók, geográfusok fellelhető jelöletlen földrajzi emlékhelyeit, létező emléktábláit, szobrait, domborműveit, a róluk elnevezett utcákat, földrajzi helyeket, intézményeket és síremlékeket. Érdekelnek bennünket az adott személy szülőházán, későbbi lakóházán, iskoláján és munkahelyén található vagy javasolandó emléktáblák egyaránt. Továbbá síremlékükről és a velük kapcsolatos szobrokról, domborművekről is szeretnénk fotóval illusztrált nyilvántartást készíteni archívumunkban a részletes adatok feltüntetésével. Kérjük olvasóinkat, hogy ha környezetükben tudomásuk van a fenti értelemben vett emlékhelyről, annak pontos címét, adatait, esetleg fényképét számunkra megküldeni szíveskedjenek. Előre is köszönjük a közös ügyünkhöz, nemzeti tudatunk erősítését szolgáló vállalkozásunkhoz nyújtott segítségüket! Dr. Kubassek János múzeumigazgató