Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

Simultaneously, Pingré was busy presenting to the Academie des Sciences a series of lectures,
where he concluded that the solar parallax had to be 8.80″, “à très-peu-près” (“quite
accurately”). 146 The approach of Pingré was more open-minded than that of Hell or Lalande.
The only thing he rejected was the exterior contact of egress as observed in Cajaneborg;
Planman’s ingress data could still be used, he argued. As for Tahiti, Pingré upon investigation
found that the observation of Green had to be left out; the same he did with Borchgrevink’s
data from Vardø. He even tested thoroughly Rumovskii’s observation from Kola, something
Lalande, Lexell and Planman had all neglected. 147 Lalande was upset, but felt confident that
he would be able to make a fool of him, as he said in a letter to Wargentin. 148 Hell, on the
other hand, felt an enormous relief. The difference between their conclusions – 8.80″ instead
of 8.70″ – he found to originate from Pingré’s use of Cook’s observation instead of that of
Green. But this was hardly any offence; the Jesuit Father found that his credibility had been
restored and the notorious egress data from Cajaneborg had been rejected from the
calculations. 149
At least publicly, Lalande appears to have carried no more logs to the fire. And after
publishing a 162-page Supplementum to the memoir De Parallaxi Solis in the autumn of
1773, Hell too withdrew from the debate. Planman published an apology against this last
work of Hell in 1774. He there argued for a probable parallax of 8.40″, but the article appears
not to have been widely disseminated. 150 Lexell groaned to Wargentin that the Jesuit could
only have had two reasons for publishing a private letter of his in the Supplementum; the first
being a desire to defend his conclusion of 8.70″ for the parallax, the second, a desire to hurt
Lexell’s reputation. Lexell explained that he too planned to publish another apology against
Hell, “if the Academy agrees to its publication”, but this plan appears to have come to
nothing. 151
146
Pingré, “Mémoire sur la parallaxe du Soleil, Déduite des meilleurs Observations de la durée du passage de
Vénus sur son disque le 3 Juin 1769” 1775, p. 419.
147
Hell had, it is true, presented a brief investigation of Rumovskii’s observation and concluded that it gave a
parallax of 8.73″, but without putting much weight on this; cf. Hell 1772, pp. 80-84.
148
Lalande to Wargentin in Stockholm, dated Paris 5 January 1773 (CVH): “mais je crois que je pourrai me
mocquer de lui”.
149
Hell to Weiss in Tyrnavia, dated Vienna 6 April 1773 (Pinzger 1927, pp. 114-117).
150
In Handl.Stockh. for October-December 1774, pp. 306-319 (Planman 1774).
151
Lexell to Wargentin in Stockholm, dated St. Petersburg 11 / 22 June 1774 (CVH).
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