Page - 47 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

47The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces mines of the region and elsewhere, whose relationship with Matthäus Corne- lius cannot be established with full certainty: Georg, mentioned in Baia Mare (Nagybánya, Rivulus Dominarum, Neustadt) in Transylvania in 1737, and Joachim Michael (1724–61), the operator of the water pumps designed by Jo- seph Karl in Štiavnické Bane in 1751.28 Höll senior’s relocation to Banská Štiavnica, while coinciding with the ma- jor population movements mentioned above, is more helpful to explain in the context of the long-standing tradition of the migration of mining experts into the region in answer to the specific needs of the industry. Many of the new developments in it depended on special expertise. In addition, given the lack of other major industries and persons with relevant skills, mining and metal- lurgical experts were often also charged with various tasks in general mechani- cal engineering, construction works, water regulation, and even forestry and wood processing. While mining was a strategic branch for Vienna,29 it also re- quired permanent attention. The ups and downs in the seventeenth-century fortunes of the mines in the region were not only due to the endemic wars in the territory of Hungary and the competition of the New World. The resources were still plentiful, but in order to reach the ores, deeper and deeper shafts were needed. Explosives were used to develop these in Banská Štiavnica, a pio- neer in this respect, as early as 1627.30 The removal of water also became an increasingly formidable technological challenge, no longer manageable by 28 Information on Hell’s family has been culled mainly from Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 1:9–13; Fall- er, A magyar bányagépesítés úttörői, 18–20; Anton Pinsker, “Der Astronom Pater Max Hell S.J.,” Freinberger Stimmen [Linz] 41 (1971): 99–111. Cf. Janota, “Život Maximiliána Hella,” 45–47; Ferencová, Maximilián Hell, 9–13. Some authors speak of Maximilian Hell as one of twenty-three, not twenty-two, sons and daughters of Matthäus Höll. As the Mining Ar- chive in Banská Štiavnica preserves several accounts signed by Joachim Michael in the same file that also holds plans of machinery and further accounts deriving from Matthäus Cornelius and Joseph Karl, their relationship is quite likely. Štátny ústredný banský archív v Banskej Štiavnici (šúba bš), hkg 2617. The same archives also contain as many as thir- ty-two contemporary maps of mines and shafts attributed in the catalog to “František Kornel Hell,” who, however, is not mentioned in any other source known to us. 29 In the 1770s, thirty percent of the income of the treasury in Hungary (and fifty percent in Transylvania) derived from the mines, while between seventy and eighty-five percent of the value of mining in the Habsburg monarchy came from these two provinces. Sándor Tar and László Zsámbék, eds., Selmectől Miskolcig, 1735–1985: A magyarországi műszaki felsőoktatás megindulásának 250. évfordulójára (Miskolc: Nehézipari Műszaki Egyetem, 1985), 7–8. 30 Antal Péch, Alsó-Magyarország bányamívelésének története (Budapest: Magyar Tudomán- yos Akadémia, 1884–87), 2:225–31. The innovation was introduced by the Tyrolean immi- grant expert Caspar Weindl, invited to Banská Štiavnica by Count Hieronymus Montecuc- coli as chief shareholder of the main mining company there.