It is hard to enter today into the spirit of the royal visit of a hundred years ago. Still, we may try to consider those points of view which, in that time, may have run through the minds of the inviting and the invited king.
    The King was a symbol and cementing force of the Monarchy at the time when nationality question, the situation and strikes of factory workers and landless peasants jeopardized the anyway unstable artificial structure.
    The King founded the Institute, he in person and with his signature certified it in the same way as by giving a monastery its Deed of Foundation or a town its Charter. His personal presence confirms the goals, legalizes public service and gives authority. It was a habit with the King to visit our institutions, to participate in the inaugurations, stressing this way the importance of the case, and making it unambiguous that the event and the building were part of the Empire.
    On the other hand, Francis Joseph was of the House of Habsburgs, the dethronement of which was still within living memory of the society. It was hard to complete the Compromise; the economic negotiations were still going on in the 1900s, generating heated disputes in the Parliament many times.
    Hungarian Geology had Austrian roots as well. Some of its founders had parted from the Geologische Reichsanstalt, German words thus coming natural to them. Another connection could have been Queen Elizabeth, favoured queen of Hungarians, who was assassinated two years before.
    Such antecedents and conditions characterized the King's visit, which seems more like an operetta today. News of the events had an important place in the contemporary press.