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GOULD, BENJAMIN APTHORP (1824-1896)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 284 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GOULD, See also:BENJAMIN APTHORP (1824-1896) , See also:American astronomer, a son of Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1787-1859), See also:principal of the See also:Boston Latin school, was See also:born at Boston, See also:Massachusetts, on the 27th of See also:September 1824. Having graduated at Harvard See also:College in 1844, he studied See also:mathematics and See also:astronomy under C. F. See also:Gauss at See also:Gottingen, and returned to See also:America in 1848. From 1852 to 1867 he was in See also:charge of the See also:longitude See also:department of the See also:United States See also:coast survey; he See also:developed and organized the service, was one of the first to determine longitudes by telegraphic means, and employed the See also:Atlantic See also:cable in ,866 to establish longitude-relations between See also:Europe and America. The Astronomical See also:Journal was founded by Gould in 1849; and its publication, suspended in 1861, was resumed by him in 1885. From 1855 to 1859 he acted as director of the See also:Dudley See also:observatory at See also:Albany, New See also:York; and published in 1859 a discussion of the places and proper motions of circumpolar stars to be used as See also:standards by the United States coast survey. Appointed in 1862 See also:actuary to the United States sanitary See also:commission, he issued in 1869 an important See also:volume of Military and Anthropological See also:Statistics. He fitted up in 1864 a private observatory at See also:Cambridge, See also:Mass.; but undertook in 1868, on behalf of the See also:Argentine See also:republic, to organize a See also:national observatory at See also:Cordoba; began to observe' there with four assistants in 1870, and completed in 1874 his Uranometria See also:Argentina (published •1879) for which he received in 1883 the See also:gold See also:medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. This was followed by a See also:zone-See also:catalogue of 73,160 stars (1884), and a See also:general catalogue (1885) compiled from See also:meridian observations of 32,448 stars. Gould's measurements of L. M.

See also:

Rutherfurd's photographs of the See also:Pleiades in 1866 entitle him to See also:rank as apioneer in the use of the See also:camera as an See also:instrument of precision; and he secured at Cordoba 1400 negatives of See also:southern See also:star-clusters, the reduction of which occupied the closing years of his See also:life. He returned in 1885 to his See also:home at Cambridge, where he died on the 26th of See also:November 1896. See Astronomical Journal, No. 389; Observatory, xx. 70 (same See also:notice abridged) ; See also:Science (Dec. 18, 1896, S. C. See also:Chandler) ; Astrophysical Journal, v. 5o; Monthly Notices See also:Roy. Astr. Society, lvii. 218.

End of Article: GOULD, BENJAMIN APTHORP (1824-1896)

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