ACADMITOP SCIENCES.] BIOGRAPHY. 169 



noted, he became an organizer and first president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 

 president of the American Metrological Society, vice president of the Bunker Hill Monument 

 Association, vice president of the Massachusetts Society of Cincinnati, an active member of 

 the American Antiquarian Society, etc. It was during this later period of his life that Gould 

 gave considerable attention to the pseudoscience of astrology. This activity, however, seems 

 to have found small public expression and connotes, presumably, nothing more than pure 

 curiosity concerning a phase of human interest in the sky that never outgrew the chaos of 

 primitive ideas. 



In the summer of 1896 he met with a slight accident in the streets of Boston, whose effects, 

 while not in themselves serious, persisted in the partial incapacity of one foot. He treated 

 the matter lightly but on November 26, 1896, as he left his room to go and join in the festivities 

 of a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of his youngest daughter, the foot failed him, he fell down 

 a flight of stairs and received a shock from which he never rallied. Death ensued within a few 

 hours . 



Quite naturally his departure was the occasion for many a tribute to his life and work and the 

 widely varied character of these tributes testifies to his many-sidedness. From his local asso- 

 ciates in organizations of the type noted above, I select a few that are typical of many: "His 

 erudition upon the subject of the early settlers of this community was a source of surprise to 

 those who knew him only as a scientific man. " " He was a delightful companion, being endowed 

 with conversational gifts of a rare quality." "He was ever ready with fitting anecdote, apt 

 quotation, or witty rejoinder." He was one "ever ready to enliven his talk with a merry jest 

 but whose profound religious convictions could not fail to impress themselves upon all whom he 

 met." "He was fond of poetry and when in the mood would often cap a sentiment with a quo- 

 tation." Others comment upon his remarkable memory, retentive to an extraordinary degree, 

 of many things other than history and poetry. Perhaps none of these tributes more aptly 

 illustrates the social side of his character than do his own words to a local organization, that so 

 long as he was its president " a good dinner and good wine should never be wanting as an adjunct 

 to" its meetings. 



To his professional work and scientific achievements tribute is paid in numerous journals 

 and through the transactions of academies and learned societies that had, in life, enrolled him 

 in their membership, honoris causa. The complete list of these and other like honors is too long 

 for reproduction here but typical among them are : 

 The Royal Society, London ; 

 The Royal Astronomical Society, London ; 

 Academie des Sciences, Institut de France. 

 Bureau des Longitudes, Paris; 

 K. Akademie der Wissenschaf ten, Berlin ; 

 K. Akademie der Wissenschaf ten, Wien; 

 K. Gessellschaft der Wissenschaften, Goettingen; 

 Academie Imperiale des Sciences, St. Petersburg; etc., 

 to which should be added the order Pour le Merite, Prussia, an honor rarely bestowed upon a 

 foreigner. 



While such expressions of affectionate esteem are pertinent to a judgement of the whole man, 

 it is the purpose of this memoir in chief part to set forth and insist upon the more serious and 

 sterner parts of his character. To present him as a man of clear intelligence and strong will, 

 vir tenax propositi, whose life was given whole-heartedly to one purpose early defined and never 

 abandoned, the upbuilding of science in his native land. With such an outlook upon life, there 

 is inevitably associated a firmness of conviction regarding matters small as well as great, 

 that may be courteous but must be inflexible. There goes with it, also, a certain insistent 

 demand for recognition of personal achievement that sometimes prompted Gould to lay a heavy 

 hand upon the presumptuous or careless wight who ventured to attribute to another the 

 product of his own mind and pen. Varying phases are these, of one primal impulse, a sense of 

 duty, a categorical imperative, that ruled his life. 

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