Hungarian Natural History Museum [antikvár]

Our greetings to the reader ? have the honour to share our pleasure and hopes with our readers. We are pleased to announce that 'his the first time in the 200-year history ofthe Hungárián Natural History Museum that, as we hope, such a nicely designed, informative booklet that is alsó rich in content can be turnéd over to our visitors. We hope that our publication truly reflects all the thoughts and experiences that such a versatile and exciting institution as the Hungárián Natural History Museum has to offer. We have a double aim: arousing our readers' interest, making sure that they will come to see us, and initiating them into the míne of knowledge that a museum can provide. Like others, our museum is alsó a witness of present, past, and future and, even in the present world of commotion, is trying to share the knowledge it has accrued over that 2oo-years of its history. Moreover, the museum regards preserving and turning this knowledge over to the people of future centuries as its obligation. By tradition, we collect, research, and display the objects of mineralogy, palaeontology, botany, zoology, and anthropology. We study the natural values and the biology of Hungary and faraway continents as well as the rise and evolution of the humán race. Interest in the exhibitions of natural sciences, especially among the young, has been continuously increasing. The secret of popularity lies in Nature itself in its multi-coloured diversification and beauty. Besides offering the pleasure of. learning something new about the world, our museum aspires to entertain and enrapture our usually well-informed and critical visitors. It wishes to actively contribute to the accumulation of knowledge, to get an insight into life behind the scenes, the workshops of research, the secrets of expeditions and collecting tours,-and how demonstration objects are prepared. We wish to present what we actually deal with in a nutshell, hoping that by informing our knowledgeable visitors, we can arouse their interest in acquiring more thorough knowledge about our museum, looking up our exhibitions and events, and can disseminate knowledge about our work for the broader public.