Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

the transit would be located in the frigid zone of the Arctic, and the
site providing the shortest duration, among the still undiscovered islands
of the Pacific Ocean of South America. Accordingly, they decided
to man sites in each of the two regions. Their aim was
evidently nothing less than to bring about that, if clear skies were to
be bestowed upon observers at each of these sites, the determination
of the parallax of the Sun (in case other astronomers failed to
arrive at a consensus) could be defined by England’s astronomers,
with astronomers from England as sole witnesses. To this end, one
ship was dispatched with a mission to search for some extremely remote,
even undiscovered, islands of the Pacific Ocean of America.
Aboard this well equipped ship was the famous Mister Captain
Cook, accompanied by learned men, the famous astronomer Mister
Green as well as Mister Solander of the Uppsala Academy, a man
with a keen knowledge of natural history and botany in particular
(a.). Another ship with the highly famous English astronomers Dymond
and Wales set sail for Hudson Bay, upon orders to establish
the site for their observations at the fort of the Englishmen called
Prince of Wales Fort (b.). Finally, a third ship was being made ready
for an expedition to Finnmark, a region belonging to the King of Denmark
and located in the frigid zone, so extremely complicated to visit;
the highly famous astronomers Mister Bayly and Mister
(a.) This ship, which is known to have circumnavigated the entire
globe, reached the shores of a major island of the Pacific Ocean shortly
before the day of the transit of Venus, and cast anchor there. This island
is called Otahite by the indigenous population, King George’s Island by the
English, and Tahiti by the French. At this highly convenient site, the famous
English astronomer Mister Green, along with the illustrious Captain
Cook and Mister Solander, were granted an unclouded sky on the third
day of June 1769, allowing them to make a complete observation [of the
transit]. An account of their observation is found in the appendix to my Viennese
Ephemerides for the year 1773. However, this observation came
at a huge cost in the damaging blow it afflicted on the astronomers of England,
for they were deprived of one of their most outstanding astronomers,
the famous Mister Green, who — just like famous Monsieur Chappe d’Auteroche
in California — lost his life in Batavia in America, 1 on his way back
from this expedition.
(b.) I have treated the successful observation obtained in Hudson
Bay in the appendix to my Ephemerides for the year 1773.
1. “Batavia in America”: now better known as Jakarta in Indonesia. Green actually
died at sea 29 January 1771, having left Batavia.
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