ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY 53 



" That all the rest, residue and remainder of said personal estate, consisting of 

 the sum of five thousand and fift>-seven dollars and twenty-five cents in cash, one 

 hundred and seventy-four shares of said stock of the Michigan Mutual Life 

 Insurance Company, and the undivided two-thirds of said miscellaneous books, 

 and all and singular the said books and scientific papers as delivered by said 

 executor to it, be, and the same are hereby, assigned and set over to the said 

 National Academy of Sciences, its successors and assignees." ^^ 



Nine years later, in 1891, the stock of the insurance company 

 was sold for the sum of $10,720 and the whole amount of the 

 fund was then $18,666.88. The first grant from the income of 

 the fund was made in 1883 for search for an intra-mercurial 

 planet. In 1886 the Watson Gold Medal was awarded for the 

 first time to Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould " for his valuable 

 labors for nearly forty years in promoting the progress in astro- 

 nomical science, and especially for his successful establishment of 

 the National Observatory of the Argentine Republic, as mani- 

 fested in the six volumes of observations recently prepared and 

 published by him." 



This medal was presented at the spring session of 1887, a 

 special evening meeting being held on April 20 in the lecture- 

 room of the National Museum for that purpose. The President 

 of the Academy, Professor Marsh, in a presentation address 

 remarked as follows: 



" Dr. Gould's great works are: 

 I. The Uranometria Argentina, one volume, with large atlas. This work 

 comprises a catalogue and map of all the stars down to the seventh magnitude, 

 from the south pole to 10 degrees north declination, the position and magnitude 

 of each being given. It is not a mere catalogue, but embodies an exhaustive study 

 of the distribution of stars of different magnitudes and their relations to the 

 Milky Way. 



" 2. The Argentine General Catalogue, one volume, 4to, contains the places 

 of nearly 33,000 (32,448) stars, determined with the highest accuracy with the 

 meridian circle. Three determinations of each star were generally made. The 

 catalogue is followed by a list of the stars contained in some of the most noted 

 clusters. 



" 3- The Cordoba Zone Catalogues, seven volumes, give the places of 73,160 

 stars down to the tenth magnitude. 



' Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. i, p. 227. 



