preserved at the Vienna Observatory. Littrow, then an astronomer
at Vienna, made a critical examination of this record in order to
determine whether it had been tampered with. His conclusions were
published in a little book giving a transcript of the journal, a
facsimile of the most important entries, and a very critical
description of the supposed alterations made in them. He reported
in substance that the original record had been so tampered with
that it was impossible to decide whether the observations as
published were genuine or not. The vital figures, those which told
the times when Venus entered upon the sun, had been erased, and
rewritten with blacker ink. This might well have been done after
the party returned to Copenhagen. The case against the observer
seemed so well made out that professors of astronomy gave their
hearers a lesson in the value of truthfulness, by telling them how
Father Hell had destroyed what might have been very good
observations by trying to make them appear better than they really
were.

In 1883 I paid a visit to Vienna for the purpose of examining the
great telescope which had just been mounted in the observatory
there by Grubb, of Dublin. The weather was so unfavorable that it
was necessary to remain two weeks, waiting for an opportunity to
see the stars. One evening I visited the theatre to see Edwin
Booth, in his celebrated tour over the Continent, play King Lear
to the applauding Viennese. But evening amusements cannot be
utilized to kill time during the day. Among the works I had
projected was that of rediscussing all the observations made on
the transits of Venus which had occurred in 1761 and 1769, by the
light of modern discovery. As I have already remarked, Hell's
observations were among the most important made, if they were only