Page - 85 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

85The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces however, bear some relation to a slender German-language book by Hell on the useful applications of artificial steel magnets, Anleitung zum nützlichen Gebr- auch der künstlichen Stahl-Magneten (Introduction to the useful application of artificial steel magnets), first published in Vienna in 1762, and then again in Graz in 1770. The bulk of this richly illustrated, fifty-page booklet is devoted to explaining how pieces of steel in various forms and sizes may be applied with the strongest magnetic force possible. Hell’s interest in magnetism will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 8, in the context of his important engagement and controversy with Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815) following the latter’s presentation of his Dissertatio physi- co-medica de planetarum influxu (Physico-medical dissertation on the influ- ence of the planets) to the Viennese medical faculty in 1766. A few aspects are worth stressing here. First, after a short historical account of the variegated uses of the magnetic needle—to which, in Hell’s presentation, Europe owes all the riches of the Americas, easy access to fields of precious metals, as well as many other practical and scientific benefits—and a summary of eighteenth- century inquiry into the subject, Hell records that the new type of artificial magnet had been quite unknown in “our lands” until recently: the first ones he had ever seen were two finely polished little rods of English steel […] brought to Transylvania from England by a certain professor of mathematics of the Reformed University [sic] in Cluj in the year 1754, exactly when I held the teaching position in mathematics at our university, and thanks to my acquain- tance with the professor mentioned I had the honor of holding these two rods in my hands.148 Hell’s Calvinist colleague was probably György Verestói (1698–1765). Verestói, who studied at the University of Franeker in the 1720s, was appointed as pro- fessor of philosophy and mathematics of the College of the Reformed Church in Cluj in 1728. He does not seem to have changed chairs till 1758, when he took over theology. In 1760, he was elected superintendent (bishop) of the Calvinist church in Transylvania.149 Verestói is mainly appreciated as an outstanding orator who, however, cultivated a strong interest in the natural sciences and 148 Maximilian Hell, Anleitung zum nützlichen Gebrauch der künstlichen Stahl-Magneten (Vi- enna: Ghelen, 1762), 12. 149 See István Török, “A kolozsvári collegium xviii. századi tanárainak életrajza. (Verestói György 1728–1764 tanár s később püspök.),” Protestáns Közlöny 3, nos. 13–14 (1886): 122–23; 128–30; Török, A kolozsvári ev. ref. kollégium története (Cluj: Ev. Ref. Collegium, 1905), 3:12–21.