888 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 103. 



1866 he published his reduction of D'Age- 

 let's observations. About the same time he 

 performed a similar service for the greater 

 part of the observations made at the United 

 States Naval Observatory since its estab- 

 lishment, as he had done also several years 

 previously for the expedition to Chili to de- 

 termine the solar parallax. In 1866 he 

 planned and executed the work of estab- 

 lishing, by the Atlantic cable, the relation 

 in longitude between European and Ameri- 

 can stations, involving, as a part, interest- 

 ing researches on the velocity of the galvanic 

 current in submarine cables, similar to those 

 he had already made on land lines. 



As actuary of the United States Sanitary 

 Commission, he conducted, and published in 

 a large volume, extensive and important re- 

 searches upon Military and Anthropological 

 Statistics and the Distribution of Popula- 

 tion. About the same time he undertook 

 the reduction of Eutherfurd's photographs 

 of the Pleiades. The results, partially pub- 

 lished in 1866, were submitted completely, 

 in an elaborate memoir, to the National 

 Academy in 1870, together with a second 

 memoir on the Prcesepe. He was, indeed, 

 a pioneer in the utilization of photography 

 for exact astronomical measurement. About 

 1864 he built an observatory in Cambridge, 

 equipped with an 8-ft. transit instrument, 

 and, until 1867, carried on a determination 

 of the right ascensions of all the stars to 

 the tenth magnitude within one degree of 

 the pole. This work was completely re- 

 duced, but the discussion and publication 

 were postponed by his removal to Cordoba. 



In 1865 he became intensely impressed 

 with a desire to explore the southern celes- 

 tial hemisphere. The opportunity to do so 

 soon came. This project assumed at first 

 the form of a private astronomical expedi- 

 tion, for which his friends in Boston had 

 promised the pecuniary means ; but, under 

 the enthusiastic support of Mr. Sarmiento, 

 at first as Argentine Minister to this country , 



and later as President of that Eepublic, it 

 rapidly broadened, and finally led to the 

 establishment, by Dr. Gould, of a permanent 

 National Observatory at Cordoba. This 

 marks an epoch in modern astronomy, the 

 equalization of our knowledge of the two 

 celestial hemispheres. The institution and 

 its work form an impressive monument to 

 his memory. 



It is impossible, in brief space, to de- 

 scribe or characterize the marvelous work 

 here undertaken and so faultlessly pushed 

 to completion by Dr. Gould, during the fif- 

 teen years of self-imposed exile from his 

 native land, with unfaltering devotion and 

 energy, in the face of difiiculty and domes- 

 tic bereavement. The work on the uran- 

 ography of the southern heavens was fin- 

 ished in 1874, and was published under the 

 title of the Uranometria Argentina, which 

 will remain a classic for all time. The zone- 

 observations of the stars between 23° and 

 80° south declination, which were the origi- 

 nal and always the dominant object of the 

 enterprise, were begun in 1872, substantially 

 completed in 1877, and revised in 1882-83. 

 This work was embodied in the Zone-Cata- 

 logues containing 73,160 stars, which ap- 

 peared in 1884. Parallel with this, and 

 almost overshadowing it in importance, was 

 carried on the independent series of merid- 

 ian circle observations for the General Cat- 

 alogue of 32,448 stars, completed in 1885. 

 Dr. Gould, besides, left the manuscript of 

 the remainder of his series of fifteen vol- 

 umes, not then published — containing the 

 observations and the annual catalogues, in- 

 corporated in the General Catalogue — com- 

 plete to the minutest detail, ready for the 

 printer. These have since appeared from 

 time to time ; the last volume, rounding out 

 his work, reaching Cambridge but a few 

 hours before his death. 



Another part of the work for the Cordoba 

 Observatory, planned by Dr. Gould as a fit- 

 ting extension of it, was a Durchmusterung 



