Astronomer; born in
Boston, Mass., Sept. 27, 1824; graduated at Harvard in 1844, and went abroad for further study in 1845.
Returning to the
United States in 1848 he settled in
Cambridge, Mass., and early in 1849 started the
Astronomical journal, in which were published the results of many original investigations.
In 1851 he took charge of the longitude operations of the United States Coast Survey.
After the
Atlantic cable was laid in 1866, he went to
Valencia,
Ireland, and founded a station where he could determine the difference in longitude between
America and
Europe.
He also, by exact observations, connected the two continents.
These were the first determinations, by telegraph, of transatlantic longitude, and they resulted in founding a regular series of longitudinal measurements from
Louisiana to the
Ural Mountains.
In 1856-59
Dr. Gould was director of the
Dudley Observatory in
Albany, N. Y. In this building the normal clock was first employed to give time throughout the observatory by telegraph.
He later greatly improved this clock, which is now used in all parts of the world.
In 1868 he organized and directed the national observatory at
Cordoba, in the
Argentine Republic.
He there mapped out a large part of the
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southern heavens.
He also organized a national meteorological office, which was connected with branch stations extending from the tropics to Terra del Fuego, and from the
Andes Mountains to the
Atlantic.
He returned from
South America in 1885, and died in
Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 26, 1896.
His publications include
Investigations in the military and Anthropological statistics of American soldiers;
Investigations of the orbit of comet V.;
Report of the discovery of the planet Neptune;
Discussions of observations made by the United States astronomical expedition to Chile to determine the solar Parallax;
The transatlantic longitude as determined by the coast survey;
Uranometry of the Southern heavens;
Ancestry of Zaccheus Gould, etc.
