Seite - 213 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

213The Expeditio litteraria ad Polum Arcticum a Swedish priest confirming that they did attend service during winter- time. On his recommendation, during summertime they are even here [in Tromsø] allowed to Holy Communion without declaration of faith or examination.10 Questioning the degree of success by the Danish crown in bringing Sámi sub- jects under its jurisdiction and into religious conformity through mission was a standard element of descriptions of the indigenous people of the north in eighteenth-century global geographies. It was not uncommon that travel ac- counts, rather than providing original observations on such matters, simply repeated the stereotypes found in the relevant literature. This seems not to be the case with Sajnovics’s remark: the precious piece of information was obvi- ously revealed to the Jesuits directly during conversations with locals, whose confidence they could only gain by taking their time. Moreover, Hell and Sajnovics wanted to measure the geographic latitude of as many places as possible. In the absence of visible stars during the Arctic summer months, this act of surveying was only feasible at the time when the Sun reached its highest point at midnight or at noon.11 In the same process, it was also possible to determine the axis of true north and south, which in turn was a prerequisite for the measurement of the slightly varying deviation of the compass needle from true north.12 Many a short stop was therefore prolonged for a couple of hours or more, so that the local pole height as well as the degree of magnetic declination could be measured. Similarly, the curiosity of the two Jesuits also induced them to inspect marks of old shorelines formed ages ago and to measure their distance from the present sea level (in Hamningberg, Kjelvik, and Måsøy);13 to engage in climbing to measure the height of mountains 10 Sajnovics, a sheet of paper named “Supplementa Diarij” (wus). 11 Hell summarized these observations in the report Latitudines geographicae locorum Fin­ marchiae, Nordlandiae, Norwegiae et Sueciae observationibus astronomicis definitae à Maximiliano Hell (manuscript, National Library of Norway, MS 4o 16), published in Danish translation as “Nogle Steders Geographiske Breder i Finmarken, Nordlandene, Norge og Sverrige bestemmede ved astronomiske Observationer […] og overgivet det Kongelige Videnskabernes Selskab i Kiøbenhavn den 18 May 1770. […] af det Latinske Sprog oversat paa Dansk af Henrich Hövinghoff,” Skrifter Kiøb. 10 (1770): 619–52, and, twenty years later, in an expanded Latin version in Hell’s own Ephemerides, “Observationes astronomicae latitudinum […].” 12 Aspaas and Lynne Hansen, Maximilian Hell’s Geomagnetic Observations; Aspaas and Lynne Hansen, “Geomagnetism by the North Pole.” 13 Hell’s manuscript “Methodus observandi declinationes acus magneticae per iter litterari- um ad Polum boreum” (wus; facsimile in Aspaas, “Maximilian Hell og Johannes Sajno- vics,” 68, and in Lynne Hansen and Aspaas, Maximilian Hell’s Geomagnetic Observations, 61–105), entries on July 8 and 19, 1769.