abroad that he was delaying the work until he got the results of
observations made elsewhere, in order to "doctor" his own and make
them fit in with the others. One went so far as to express a
suspicion that Hell had not seen the transit at all, owing to
clouds, and that what he pretended to publish were pure
fabrications. But his book came out in a few months in such good
form that this suspicion was evidently groundless. Still, the
fears that the observations were not genuine were not wholly
allayed, and the results derived from them were, in consequence,
subject to some doubt. Hell himself considered the reflections
upon his integrity too contemptible to merit a serious reply. It
is said that he wrote to some one offering to exhibit his journal
free from interlineations or erasures, but it does not appear that
there is any sound authority for this statement. What is of some
interest is that he published a determination of the parallax of
the sun based on the comparison of his own observations with those
made at other stations. The result was 8".70. It was then, and
long after, supposed that the actual value of the parallax was
about 8".50, and the deviation of Hell's result from this was
considered to strengthen the doubt as to the correctness of his
work. It is of interest to learn that, by the most recent
researches, the number in question must be between 8".75 and
8".80, so that in reality Hell's computations came nearer the
truth than those generally current during the century following
his work.

Thus the matter stood for sixty years after the transit, and for a
generation after Father Hell had gone to his rest. About 1830 it
was found that the original journal of his voyage, containing the
record of his work as first written down at the station, was still