Page - 276 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 6276 of clouds. From that moment onward, the Sun has not been possible to observe, although it is by now the sixth day of June.54 As time passed by, the secretive descriptions became more and more sophisti- cated. Father Hell’s letter to Wargentin, dated Copenhagen, November 7, 1769, is a good example: I have received Your highly friendly letter, eminent fellow, in which You congratulate me on my successful return from Lapland. I thank You sin- cerely both for Your friendly affections and especially for the astronomi- cal news and that set of accurate observations of Yours. I am very sorry to learn that Venus has been so unfair when [only partially] exposing her- self to all the other observers by the Arctic; it is like a miracle, how she uncovered herself graciously to me, who very nearly had given up all hope, but in doing so, she offered herself to be seen in such a parsimoni- ous, and almost feminine manner, that apart from all the contacts—that is, her four kisses with the Sun, which she displayed with an uncovered face—she hid herself away with her Apollo behind a thick cloud for al- most the entire duration of their rendezvous, as if being shy. I did not mind the clouds much, however, for after the observation of the first inte- rior contact, which took place while the upper limb of the Sun was six degrees and thirty-three arc minutes high, the Sun dropped down closer and closer to the horizon, so that, during its passage through the north- ern meridian it was barely three degrees above the horizon. Because of the vapors of the horizon, which in this place [Vardø] are extremely dense and fluctuating so close to the horizon, it would in any case have been impossible to determine the position of Venus accurately. The inte- rior contact of egress took place when the Sun was 10° 4′, and the exterior contact when it was 11° 13′ high, and they were observed by me so pre- cisely, and in such clear and quiet atmospheric conditions, that I barely dare to doubt for more than a single second. After egress, the sky re- mained totally clear, without a single cloud until 3:30 p.m. on June 4, al- lowing me to accurately observe both the corresponding heights and the solar eclipse, and the Sun on my six-feet high meridian line.55 If Sajnovics engaged in rhetorical flourish to describe his experience of the transit, in Hell’s parallel text this assumes near-poetic dimensions, even 54 Sajnovics to Splenyi in Trnava, dated Vardø, June 6, 1769 (mtak IL). 55 Hell to Wargentin in Stockholm, dated Copenhagen, November 7, 1769 (cvh).