686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hemisphere. Dr. Gould has just finished at Cordoba a series of like 

 researches, in the course of which he has taken 106,000 observations 

 of southern zones. Almost at the same time he was engaged in a 

 second series of determinations of great precision, involving 110,000 

 meridian observations between the equator and the south pole. In this 

 work he determines anew all the co-ordinates of the stars observed at 

 different epochs by Lacaille, Piazzi, Brisbane, Rumker, Johnston, Tay- 

 lor, Maclear, Ellery, and others. He has also made observations of other 

 stars down to the ninth magnitude, which gave him his fundamental 

 positions. By these three great works he has established certain bases 

 for future research. Henceforth the position of all heavenly bodies 

 may be referred to those of well-determined stars, and, by comparing 

 the co-ordinates of his second catalogue with those obtained in the 

 past by Lacaille and others, important conclusions may be arrived at 

 as to the movements of the fixed stars. Dr. Gould has used photo- 

 graphic processes in the determination of star places with great suc- 

 cess, and almost all the star-clusters of the southern heavens can be 

 found in the two hundred plates obtained by him, several of these 

 plates containing about two hundred stars each. This latest work 

 is not yet published, but some of the plates obtained the highest prize 

 at the Philadelphia Exposition. 



Besides these great astronomical works, Dr. Gould has done much 

 in quite another line, which can merely be mentioned here. The 

 United States Sanitary Commission has published a work by him of 

 400 quarto pages, containing the results of physiological observations 

 on over 30,000 men from the point of view of statistical anthropology. 

 The same work contains the results of innumerable experiments made 

 in the Federal army upon 1,300,000 men, with a view to determine 

 human growth between the ages of fifteen and fifty. 



The climatic conditions of South America were quite unknown in 

 1872. Dr. Gould has established a net- work of meteorological sta- 

 tions, extending on one side from the tropics to Tierra del Fuego, 

 and on the other from the Andes to the Atlantic. Observations are 

 now made regularly three times a day in twenty-five stations. One 

 volume in quarto has already been published on the climate of Buenos 

 Ayres, and others are being prepared. 



On Dr. Gould's first return home for a short visit, a public recep- 

 tion was arranged for him in Boston in response to the following 

 invitation : 



Desirous of testifying to the honor in which your native country and city 

 hold those great services to science, as ohserver and investigator, which pecul- 

 iarly propitious circumstances have led you to offer to our sister republic in 

 South America, under the administration of the distinguished President Sar- 

 miento, as director of the Argentine National Observatory and Meteorological 

 Office; and wishing to meet you on your return home with the friendly sym- 

 pathy of fellow-citizens, and to hear from your own lips something of the results 



