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Then, about 1833, a little book was published on the subject by Littrow, Director of the Vienna Observatory, which excited much attention. Father Hell's original journal had been conveyed to Vienna on his return, and was still on deposit at the Austrian National Observatory.
A fine cleft may be traced from near the foot of the E. wall to Mount Argaeus, passing S. of a bright crater on the Mare E. of Littrow. It extends towards the Plinius system, and is probably connected with it.
Erasers were doubtless unknown in those days at least our astronomer had none on his expedition so when he found he had written the wrong word he simply wiped the place off with, perhaps, his finger and wrote what he wanted to say. In such a case Littrow described the matter as erased and new matter written. When the ink flowed freely from the quill pen it was a little dark.
Its true character of a continuous solar envelope was inferred from these data by Grant, Swan, and Littrow, and was by Father Secchi, after the great eclipse of 1860, formally accepted as established. Several prominences of remarkable forms, especially one variously compared to a Turkish scimitar, a sickle, and a boomerang, were seen in 1851.
So I asked Director Weiss whether anything was known as to the normal character of Littrow's power of distinguishing colors. His answer was prompt and decisive. "Oh, yes, Littrow was color blind to red. He could not distinguish between the color of Aldebaran and that of the whitest star." No further research was necessary.
It struck me as very curious that where the manuscript had been merely retouched with ink which was obviously the same as that used in the original writing, but looked a little darker than the original, Littrow described the ink as of a different color.
To a cursory glance, the descriptions given by Littrow seemed to cover the ground so completely that no future student could turn his doubt into certainty. But when one looks leisurely at an interesting object, day after day, he continually sees more and more. Thus it was in the present case.
Littrow examined it and found, as he supposed, that the suspicions of alterations in observations were well founded; more especially that the originals of the all-important figures which recorded the critical moment of "contact" had been scraped out of the paper, and new ones inserted in their places.
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 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.
One of the first things to strike me as curious was that many of the alleged alterations had been made before the ink got dry. When the writer made a mistake, he had rubbed it out with his finger, and made a new entry. The all-important point was a certain suspicious record which Littrow affirmed had been scraped out so that the new insertion could be made.