Page - 179 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

179The North Beckons account,19 that the procedure involved three trained observers—each with their assistant, in addition to a fourth assistant paying attention to the clocks. Thus, the Copenhagen observation was of little value to Lalande, who men- tions it only in a tiny notice in the memoirs of the Académie Royale des Scienc- es.20 At his time of writing, Lalande was still awaiting the adjustment of the time to lmt. Horrebow had, however, assured him by letter that the difference between the observed time and lmt for Copenhagen “could be but very insignificant.”21 Several years were to pass until Horrebow finally published an article (in Danish) in which he adjusted the time-keeping of his observation. The adjustment, of almost three minutes, turned out to be anything but insig- nificant.22 However, no trace of these “second thoughts” is to be found any- where else in the contemporary literature on the solar parallax, thus interna- tionally Horrebow failed to make any impact.23 As for Trondheim, this northernmost city of Denmark–Norway at the time was one of the locations where the entire duration of the 1761 transit was going to be visible. Since 1760, a new Society of Sciences had flourished there, but as its founding fathers were mainly devoted to history, philosophy, agriculture, and natural history,24 the Royal Society of Copenhagen dispatched two young 19 Christian Horrebow, Dissertatio de semita, qvam in Sole descripsit Venus per eundem tran- seundo die 6 Junii Ao. 1761 […] (Copenhagen: Nicolai Christian Höppfner, 1761) in two parts, originally presented as a dissertation at the University of Copenhagen on July 28 and 29, 1761. One of the assistants was Christian’s brother Peder the younger, who had submitted a dissertation to the university on the upcoming transit of Venus and its significance a mere two days before the event itself. See Dissertatio de transitu Veneris per discum Solis, quam publico opponentium examini submittet Mag. Petrus Horrebow […] (Copenhagen: Nicolai Christian Höpffner, 1761). 20 Lalande, “Remarques sur les observations du passage de Vénus, faites à Copenhague & à Drontheim en Norwège, par ordre du Roi de Dannemarck,” hars (1761; published 1763): 113–14. 21 Lalande, “Remarques sur les observations du passage de Vénus,” 113. 22 Cf. Lalande, “Remarques sur les observations du passage de Vénus,” 113: 2h 3′ 30″ and 2h 21′ 0″, versus Christan Horrebow, “Tidens Bestemmelse i Henseende til de Observationer, som skeede i Solen og Venere, da Venus anno 1761. den 6te Junii passerede igiennem So- len,” Skrifter Kiøb 9 (1765): 387–88: 2h 6′ 20″, 44 and 2h 23′ 50″, 52. 23 Axel V. Nielsen (1902–70) attempted to vindicate Horrebow’s Venus transit observation of 1761 by examining the procedures presented in the article of 1765; see “Christian Horre- bows observationer af Venuspassagen i 1761,” Nordisk Astronomisk Tidsskrift (1957): 47–50. 24 Cf., e.g., Monica Aase and Mikael Hård, “‘Det norska Athen’: Trondheim som lärdomsstad under 1700-talets andra hälft,” Lychnos (1998): 37–74. Nils Gilje and Tarald Rasmussen, Norsk Idéhistorie, vol. 2, Tankeliv i den lutherske stat, ed. Trond Berg Eriksen and Øystein Sørensen (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002), 2:376–96; Håkon With Andersen et al., Aemula Lauri: The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, 1760–2010 (Sagamore Beach, MA: