ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY 79 



of the Commission, Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles, upon his re- 

 turn to this country, addressed a letter, dated April 21, 1896, 

 to the President of the Academy, requesting that one of its 

 members be appointed to serve on an advisory board to which he 

 could submit propositions which he intended to present to the 

 Congress of 1898. The President appointed Dr. Theodore N. 

 Gill as the representative of the Academy. 



To the five trust funds for the promotion of science, already 

 administered by the Academy, a sixth was added in 1897, when 

 Alice Bache Gould presented the sum of $20,000, to create a 

 fund in honor of her father, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, " for the 

 prosecution of researches in astronomy." In a letter addressed 

 to the Academy and dated November 17, 1897, Miss Gould 

 explained the objects which she had chiefly in mind in estab- 

 lishing this fund. In this letter she writes : 



" My object in creating the fund is two fold on the one hand to advance the 

 science of astronomy, and on the other to honor my father's memory and to 

 insure that his power to accomplish scientific work shall not end with his life. 



" Throughout my father's lifetime his patriotic feeling and scientific ambition 

 were closely associated, and I wish, therefore, that a fund bearing his name should 

 be used, primarily, for the benefit of investigators in his own country or of his own 

 nationality. I recognize, however, that sometimes the best possible service to 

 American science is the maintenance of close communion between the scientific 

 men of Europe and of America, and that, therefore, even while acting in the spirit 

 of the above restriction, it may occasionally be best to apply the money to the aid of 

 a foreign investigator working abroad. 



" In this connection I must also refer to the strong interest felt by my father in 

 the National Academy of Sciences, 79 and to his belief in the importance of creating 

 and maintaining a single national scientific body, whose preeminence should be 

 unquestionable and of concentrating power in its hands 



" I wish that in all cases work in the astronomy of precision should be distinctly 

 preferred to any work in astrophysics, both because of my father's personal pref- 

 erence and because of the present existence of generous endowments for astro- 

 physics." so 



This fund was accepted by the Academy by a unanimous 

 vote, and three trustees were appointed to take charge of it. 



79 Dr. Gould was one of the incorporators of the Academy. 



80 The letter is given in full, together with the deed of trust, in the Annual Report for 

 1897, pp. 14-16. 



