Page - 172 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

© PER PIPPIN ASPAAS AND LÁSZLÓ KONTLER, ����  |  doi:10.1163/9789004416833_006 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. Chapter 4 The North Beckons: “A desperate voyage by desperate persons” In September 1767, Maximilian Hell was invited by the court of Copenhagen to lead an expedition for the observation of the 1769 transit of Venus to the Island of Vardø, the site of a fortress and a small garrison in the remote northeastern corner of the Danish–Norwegian realm. He set forth in April 1768 along with his assistant Sajnovics, the servant Sebastian Kohl, and a dog1—not to speak of a massive array of scientific equipment that was to be substantially supple- mented in Copenhagen, Christiania (Oslo), and Nidaros (Trondheim) as the group progressed northward. The resources offered to Hell for his expedition indicate the prestige of the project: he was given the best wagons and ships available; he got all the personnel and material he needed to construct his ob- servatory in Vardø; he was provided with his own cook and sufficient supplies for a whole year for his period north of Trondheim; and he got natural histori- an Jens Finne Borchgrevink (1737–1819) attached to the expedition as a scien- tific assistant, translator, and “guide” in northernmost Norway.2 A hibernation in Vardø in 1768–69 was followed by another long rest in Copenhagen in 1769–70. Not until August 1770 did the group return to Vienna. In the mean- time, Hell and Sajnovics had successfully observed the transit of Venus from Vardøhus (as the fortress at Vardø was called), carried out a significant amount of field research in other areas of knowledge, and been elected full members of the Royal Societies of Sciences in both Copenhagen and Trondheim. They had interacted with leading characters in Danish–Norwegian civil, ecclesiastical, and military administration, and with professionals as well as amateurs of 1 Studies in the history of science have emphasized the role of the nameless and faceless par- ticipants in the shaping of canonized scientific knowledge, usually obliterated in the stan- dard accounts based on the perspective of the project leader. See, e.g., Neil Safier, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), especially 57–92; Klemun and Hühnel, Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin, 88–90. Unfortu- nately, we know nothing about Kohl except the name—and not even the name of the dog. 2 Nils Voje Johansen, “Vitenskap som springbrett: Jens Finne Borchgrevink satset og vant,” Fjell- folk: Årbok for Rørosmuseet 29 (2004): 20–29; Per Pippin Aspaas, “Maximilian Hell og Jo- hannes Sajnovics om folkeliv og natur i Øst-Finnmark anno 1769,” in Forpost mot øst: Fra Vardø og Finnmarks historie 1307–2007, Rapport fra det xxxii nordnorske historieseminar Vardø 21.–23. september 2007, ed. Randi Rønning Balsvik and Jens Petter Nielsen (Stamsund: Orkana forlag, 2008), 61–72.