Benjamin Apthorp Gould, an American astronomer, born in Boston, Sept. 27, 1824. After graduating at Harvard college (1844), he went to Gottingen, where he pursued his mathematical and astronomical studies under Gauss, and took his degree in 1848. He was for some time an assistant in the observatory at Altona with Schumacher and Petersen. After visiting many of the chief observatories of Europe and spending some time at each, he returned to America, and was employed in the United States coast survey, having charge of the longitude determinations, the telegraphic methods of which he very greatly improved. In 1866 he made the first determinations of transatlantic longitude by telegraph cable. In 1856 he was appointed director of the Dudley observatory at Albany, and superintended its building and arrangement in 1857-8. His occupancy of this post ended in January, 1859, owing to a disagreement with the trustees of the institution, which led to a prolonged and painful conflict, carried on through pamphlets and the public press. A committee of scientific men subsequently justified the action of Prof. Gould in the matters leading to this misunderstanding.

In 1808 he was appointed to organize and direct the national observatory of the Argentine Republic at Cordova. After ordering the instruments in Europe and erecting the building at Cordova, he began work there with four assistants in 1870. Since that time he has • completed a set of maps of the stars visible with the naked eye from his observatory, with their positions and magnitudes, and afterward undertook a series of zone observations of southern stars. Up to April 15,1874, the great number of 83,000 stars had been observed. Prof. Gould's principal works are: "Report on the Discovery of the Planet Neptune" (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1850); " Investigation of the Orbit of Comet V." (Washington, 1847); "Discussions of Observations made by the United States Astronomical Expedition to Chili, to determine the Solar Parallax" (Washington, 1856); "Discussion on the Statistics of the United States Sanitary Commission;" and the charts of stars already named, with others of scarcely less importance. In 1849 he founded at Cambridge, Mass., the " Astronomical Journal," the expenses of which were long borne by himself and a few friends.

He continued to conduct it until its suspension in 1861.