Gould, BENJAMIN APTHORP

Gould, BENJAMIN APTHORP, astronomer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 27th September 1824, graduated at Harvard in 1844, and received the degree of Ph.D. at Göttingen in 1848. He conducted the Astronomical Journal from 1849 to 1861, was director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany in 1856-59, and in 1866 determined by aid of the submarine cable the difference in longitude between Europe and America. In charge, from 1868, of the national observatory at Cordoba in the Argentine Republic, he organised a series of stations throughout the country, and mapped a large part of the southern heavens: his Uranometry of the Southern Heavens did for the southern hemisphere what Argelander's Atlas did for the northern. After his return he received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard (1885) and from Columbia (1887). He published valuable astronomical reports and charts, and was a member of numerous scientific societies in Europe. His death, 27th November 1896, was brought about by a fall downstairs.