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GOULD BENJAMIN: (1824-1896)
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Description
GOULD BENJAMIN: (1824-1896) American astronomer. A.L.S., B. A. Gould, four pages, 8vo, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 16th March 1866, to Professor Forster. Gould states that he had been intending to write to his correspondent since receiving their letter last August, ´but very laboring & exhausting duties connected with the U.S. Sanitary Commission have been superposed upon other labors so that very few opportunities have been available´, further thanking his correspondent for the Jahrbuch for 1858, and continuing ´Your expressions of sympathy for the land which all her sons love so devotedly & for the struggles & sufferings which we have undergone in defending her existence, quelling treason & removing in the only possible way the iniquity of slavery which impeded our moral & intellectual growth, & threaten to blight our future, were most welcome & valued. We Americans are always accused of an exaggerated estimate of our country and institutions; and very probably it is true; But since this attachment is so strong that (as two millions of fighting men in the field, and four millions more at home have shown) life, health & property are insignificant in comparison......England & France had no words of other import than blame & reproach for us until our battles were over & freedom & nationality established for the United States´, further writing of his personal affairs, ´My sufferings & endurances few others would be able to estimate correctly, & whatever I have borne is gladly contributed as my share for building up the edifice of American science´ and also referring to mutual colleagues, ´Of the death of our good old Eucke the tidings came & pained me. Yet I am not prepared to say that life is desirable after one´s usefulness and capacity for enjoyment are gone. Our dear & good Bache is just now in a similar condition and living with his sister in New York, where I saw him two or three days ago. His state is just what you describe Eucke´s as having been at the time you wrote. For rather more than a week I was with my friend Rutherford in New York, working with him on his photographic methods. He takes impressions of the heavens 1° square including all the stars to the 8 1/2 magnitude with white light. We have been occupied especially with....a view to determining whether any essential changes have taken place since Bessel´s time. Questions of projection are there which threaten to give most trouble by this method, but I hope to dispose of them soon, in a satisfactory way´. Gould also mentions the Astronomical Journal, ´The six volumes with their several tables of contents & indices were duly published & completed, & I have duplicates of all the numbers excepting 1, 2 & 4, from which it will gratify me to be able to complete any sets´ and announces a new publication, ´Next week I hope to publish a new edition of the "Standard Places" of fixed stars. It will contain declinations for the time-star lists which were wanting in the first edition - improved places for the four polar stars.....which were moreover affected by a small blunder´, also explaining ´The results of four years´ observations at Washington have been recently combined & compared with this list; showing for the 128 Time Stars an average discordance of less than 0.02 (no star differing by so much as 0.10). The fourteen which were discrepant by so much as 0.05 have now been recomputed....´. A letter of intersting content for its discussuon of a number of topics, from slavery to stars. A couple of very small, minor tears and an area of paper loss to the upper right corners, and with a lengthy, neat split at the base of the central vertical fold of the bifolium. About VG
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GOULD BENJAMIN: (1824-1896) American astronomer. A.L.S., B. A. Gould, four pages, 8vo, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 16th March 1866, to Professor Forster. Gould states that he had been intending to write to his correspondent since receiving their letter last August, ´but very laboring & exhausting duties connected with the U.S. Sanitary Commission have been superposed upon other labors so that very few opportunities have been available´, further thanking his correspondent for the Jahrbuch for 1858, and continuing ´Your expressions of sympathy for the land which all her sons love so devotedly & for the struggles & sufferings which we have undergone in defending her existence, quelling treason & removing in the only possible way the iniquity of slavery which impeded our moral & intellectual growth, & threaten to blight our future, were most welcome & valued. We Americans are always accused of an exaggerated estimate of our country and institutions; and very probably it is true; But since this attachment is so strong that (as two millions of fighting men in the field, and four millions more at home have shown) life, health & property are insignificant in comparison......England & France had no words of other import than blame & reproach for us until our battles were over & freedom & nationality established for the United States´, further writing of his personal affairs, ´My sufferings & endurances few others would be able to estimate correctly, & whatever I have borne is gladly contributed as my share for building up the edifice of American science´ and also referring to mutual colleagues, ´Of the death of our good old Eucke the tidings came & pained me. Yet I am not prepared to say that life is desirable after one´s usefulness and capacity for enjoyment are gone. Our dear & good Bache is just now in a similar condition and living with his sister in New York, where I saw him two or three days ago. His state is just what you describe Eucke´s as having been at the time you wrote. For rather more than a week I was with my friend Rutherford in New York, working with him on his photographic methods. He takes impressions of the heavens 1° square including all the stars to the 8 1/2 magnitude with white light. We have been occupied especially with....a view to determining whether any essential changes have taken place since Bessel´s time. Questions of projection are there which threaten to give most trouble by this method, but I hope to dispose of them soon, in a satisfactory way´. Gould also mentions the Astronomical Journal, ´The six volumes with their several tables of contents & indices were duly published & completed, & I have duplicates of all the numbers excepting 1, 2 & 4, from which it will gratify me to be able to complete any sets´ and announces a new publication, ´Next week I hope to publish a new edition of the "Standard Places" of fixed stars. It will contain declinations for the time-star lists which were wanting in the first edition - improved places for the four polar stars.....which were moreover affected by a small blunder´, also explaining ´The results of four years´ observations at Washington have been recently combined & compared with this list; showing for the 128 Time Stars an average discordance of less than 0.02 (no star differing by so much as 0.10). The fourteen which were discrepant by so much as 0.05 have now been recomputed....´. A letter of intersting content for its discussuon of a number of topics, from slavery to stars. A couple of very small, minor tears and an area of paper loss to the upper right corners, and with a lengthy, neat split at the base of the central vertical fold of the bifolium. About VG
Autograph Letters, Manuscripts & Historical Documents Auction featuring the Collection of a Leicestershire Gentleman Part I
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