140 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
plates of southern stellar clusters. ‘To the measurement and 
reduction of these he devoted the rest of his life, and had the 
satisfaction of seeing the last of these results printed in the 
Astronomical Journal, which was brought to him a few hours 
before his death. For the continued publication of the Journal 
he had made adequate provision. A public dinner was given 
Dr. Gould on his arrival in Boston, presided over by Hon. 
Leverett Saltonstall, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes welcoming 
him by a poem from “his celestial wanderings back to earth.” 
In his later years Dr. Gould did valuable work for the American 
Metrological Society of which he was at one time president. 
He was one of the founders, and first president, of the Colo- 
nial Society of Massachusetts, and received the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Laws from Harvard and Columbia. Many dis- 
tinguished societies enrolled him among their members, and he 
was made a Knight of the Order of Merit in Prussia, a distinc- 
tion given to only two other Americans. His life ended by an 
accident on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 
1896. 
(From the biographical sketch by ANDREW McF. Davis, in the Proceedings 
of the American Antiquarian Society, April, 1897.) 
ASA GRAY 
Born, November 18, 1810; died, January 30, 1888 
Asa Gray was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and was born at 
Paris, New York, November 18, 1810. His father was a 
farmer and tanner. Asa, the oldest of eight children, assisted 
his father, and attended the country school. Later, he attended 
the grammar school at Clinton, New York, and was also a 
student at Fairfield Academy for four years. His first interest 
in natural science was aroused by the lectures of Dr. James 
Hadley at the Fairfield Medical School. 
His taste for botany was aroused by reading in Brewster’s 
Edinburgh Encyclopedia and Gray soon became interested in 
collecting plants about Fairfield, besides making excursions 
to other parts of the State of New York. In 1829 he became a 
