Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

Jean-Louis Pictet from their expedition to the Kola Peninsula in 1769. 206 The Parisian
astronomer Cassini de Thury, who paid a visit to Hell in Vienna in 1761, put it thus in a paper
on the Venus transits in the proceedings of the Académie Royale des Sciences: 207
When such long voyages are undertaken, one must have more than one object,
so that in case the essential goal cannot be accomplished, it will be possible in
some measure to remedy the damage. Otherwise, one may be forced to take
comfort in having travelled more than a thousand leagues only to gaze at the
Sun for six hours and find it eclipsed, not by the planet, but by a cloud.
Similar expressions are found in a letter from Scherffer to Weiss, dated 2 August 1750. There,
Scherffer offers Weiss advice concerning the aims and scope of a planned expedition to
survey the Portuguese dominions in Brazil. Scherffer emphasises that his colleague should
prepare to undertake not only geodetic work, but also to make delicate barometrical
observations, investigate the running of pendulum clocks, undertake numerous geophysical
observations, and so on – in short, “to describe the Brazilian lands” in all their diversity: 208
I confess that, if merely one of these aspects are left out [scil. of the expedition’s
research programme], there will be no one in Europe who will explain that
defect by pointing to the expedition’s mandate, the hardships endured, the wants
of the instrumentation, the limited staff or the [King’s] parsimony in the
expenses: surely, every person will blame it on the ignorance of Jesuits abusing
the treasuries of Kings.
In other words, as Scherffer saw it, making sure to have a broad expedition programme was
especially important when Jesuits were concerned, in order to ward off attacks from anti-
Jesuit intellectuals abroad. Judging from the correspondence of Hell from the period 1768-70,
which is to a large extent intact, the idea of making a grand encyclopædic work on the High
North was present in Hell’s mind from the outset of his journey. The first reference to the title
as such is in a letter to his substitute in Vienna, Antonius Pilgram, dated Vardø 30 April 1769:
206
See the editions of Michel Mervaud & Madeleine Pinault Sørensen (Chappe 2004) and Jean-Daniel Candaux
et al. (Mallet & Pictet 2005).
207
Cassini de Thury, “Remarques sur la conjonction de Vénus avec le Soleil, Qui doit arriver le 6 Juin de l’année
prochaine 1761.” 1762 (paper read 12 November 1760), p. 334: “Lorsqu’on entreprend d’aussi longs voyages, il
faut avoir plus d’un objet, pour que si l’essentiel ne peut être rempli, on puisse en être dédommagé en quelque
manière; autrement pourroit-on se consoler d’avoir fait plus de mille lieues pour voir le Soleil pendant six heures
& de le trouver éclipsé, non par la planète, mais par un nuage.”
208
Scherffer to Weiss, dated [Graecium] 2 August 1750 (printed in Vargha 1990, pp. 10-11, here p. 11):
“Quantae molis erit Brasilas describere terras? Fateor, si horum aliquid desideraretur, vix aliquem fore in
Europa, qui defectum seu in operis ordinitatem [Vargha; anne ordinationem scribendum Kraggerud], seu in
temporum angustias [scripsi; augustias Vargha], seu in instrumentorum defectum, seu in Sociorum paucitatem,
seu in sumptuum parsimoniam referret: quin omnes vel ignorantiam Regia liberalitate abutentium Jesuitorum
accusarent.” The classical scholar will notice the hexameter at the beginning of the quotation, probably an
allusion to Vergil’s Aeneid I.33: “Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem”.
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