TWO BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULDS
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1787
June 15, Friday: Benjamin Apthorp Gould was born.
Variant texts of the plan presented by William Patterson of New Jersey to the Federal Convention, Text A: READ THE FULL TEXT
Text B: READ THE FULL TEXT
Text C: READ THE FULL TEXT
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1814
August 24, Wednesday: Viscount Castlereagh arrived at Paris, where he would be meeting with King Louis XVIII and Talleyrand before traveling on to Vienna.
As part of a conflict that was essentially a continuation of the American Revolution by way of a dispute over the seas and over the border of Canada, on this day and the following one a British army defeated hastily assembled defenders of Washington DC at Bladensburg, Maryland, just north of the capital. The British would go on to burn Washington, including the White House and most of the 3,076 books and 53 maps, charts, and plans of the Library of Congress, along with paintings of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Madame Vigee Lebruin. They would also put the chambers of the House and the Senate in Washington DC to the torch — but beware, it is sheer mythology that the books were used as kindling for the fire in the legislative chambers.1
Waldo Emerson would reminisce in his journal in about April or May of 1856 about a British-invasion-of- Boston scare that had occurred in about this period of his childhood:2
I have but one military recollection in all my life. In 1813 or 1814, all Boston, young & old, turned out to build the fortifications on Noddle’s Island; and, the Schoolmaster at the Latin School announced to the boys, that, if we wished, we might all go on a certain day to work on the Island. I went with the rest in the ferry boat, & spent a summer day; but I cannot remember that I did any kind of work. I remember only the pains we took to get water in our tin pails, to relieve our intolerable thirst. I am afraid not valuable effect of my labor remains in the existing defences.
1.There is a patriotic or accommodative story in which the invading British army is persuaded not to burn the Library of Congress, by being reminded of the ignominy of the burning of the Library of Alexandria in antiquity. This story sacrifices historical accuracy to patriotism or to accommodationism. Contrast this with another story which has a much greater likelihood of having been the truth, that the British were retaliating to the 1812 burning of the Canadian congressional library in York (Toronto) by an American expeditionary force. 2. We do not know whether Emerson was referring here to Head Master William Bigelow or to his successor Benjamin Apthorp Gould, a senior at Harvard College, for during 1814 after nine trying years Head Master Bigelow was being replaced in an attempt to restore order and scholarship (many features of the Boston Latin School of today –among them the “misdemeanor mark” and the practice of declamation– would be initiated during this disciplinary period.
I (Austin Meredith) have my own recollections similar to this, from World War II in San Diego CA. Have you seen the movie “1943”? –It is exceedingly accurate to the spirit of the times, while the necessary task of routing all Americans of Japanese ancestry into the new concentration camps in the inland desert was still going on, and the utter cooperation of the civilian (white) population, real Americans, was vitally needed by our government authorities. As a 6-year-old my parents had me in a class digging lines of foxholes across a football field, and marching around the parade ground of a religious school where my father was Chaplain, named Brown Military Academy, with a wooden rifle. I lost my first baby tooth when I Left-Ho’d in formation when I should have Right- Ho’d –because the butt of the “rifle” of the boy next to me in formation slapped me up alongside the head– and I sat down on the parade ground and began to cry and was afraid I was going to be courts-martialed. The vicious little yellow Japs were going to invade, the Hearst newspapers were reporting that already they might be lurking offshore in their submarines, just out of sight, and in a port city on the Pacific Ocean we were on the front lines and we needed to be utterly ready to defend our soil with our blood. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
Because of the perceived danger that the English navy would besiege Boston, the Emerson family then moved to Concord. Ralph Waldo attended the wooden schoolhouse in Concord square. He recited not only in school but also from the top of the sugar barrel in Deacon John White’s store nearby. Here is a silhouette of the “pilgrim profile” of Emerson’s aunt Mary Moody Emerson, who would loom large in his life though she stood at most 5 feet 0 inches tall, as she appeared in her youth, probably before her return to Malden MA:
THE DEACONS OF CONCORD Joshua Barney was wounded and captured at Bladensburg, Maryland. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1824
September 27, Monday: Benjamin Apthorp Gould was born in Boston. He would attend the school at which his father Benjamin Apthorp Gould had previously been headmaster, the Boston Latin School.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1828
Headmaster Benjamin Apthorp Gould of Boston Latin School resigned to enter business, in favor of his assistant Frederic Percival Leverett, the author of LEVERETT’S LATIN LEXICON and of SATIRÆ EXPURGATÆ. ACCEDUNT NOTÆ ANGLICÆ.
Graduating from the Franklin School in Boston, Charles Henry Appleton Dall matriculated at the Boston Latin School.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1829
Benjamin Apthorp Gould’s ADAM’S LATIN GRAMMAR, WITH SOME IMPROVEMENTS AND THE FOLLOWING ADDITIONS: RULES FOR THE RIGHT PRONUNCIATION OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE; A METRICAL KEY TO THE ODES OF HORACE; A LIST OF LATIN AUTHORS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE DIFFERENT AGES OF ROMAN LITERATURE; TABLES SHOWING THE VALUE OF THE VARIOUS COINS, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES, USED AMONG THE ROMANS. (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins; and Richardson and Lord). This textbook was in the tradition of Dr. Alexander Adam’s 1772 PRINCIPLES OF LATIN AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR and had the prior endorsement of Harvard College: “This Edition is adopted by the University at Cambridge, Mass. and is recommended to the use of those who are preparing for that Seminary.” ADAM’S LATIN GRAMMAR
The Swiss educator Phokian Clias published a popular physical education textbook called KALISTHENIE (from a Greek word meaning “beauty” and “strength”). Clias favored light to moderate exercise, and rejected ball games for women because they might result in an unfortunate over-enlargement of women’s shoulder and HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
pectoral muscles.
Edward Everett edited THE GREEK READER BY FREDERICK JACOBS, PROFESSOR OF THE GYMNASIUM AT GOTHA, AND EDITOR OF THE ANTHALOGICA. FROM THE SEVENTH GERMAN EDITION, ADAPTED TO THE TRANSLATION OF BUTTMAN’S GREEK GRAMMAR. THIRD BOSTON EDITION (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins). HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
This edition would be a required text during the education of Henry Thoreau, and would be found in his personal library after his death.
THE GREEK READER
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1844
Edward Sherman Hoar and George Merrick Brooks of Concord graduated from Harvard College with the class of 1844, as did the Richard Frederick Fuller whom Henry Thoreau had been tutoring during their “walk to Wachusett.” RICHARD FREDERICK FULLER was the fourth son. He graduated at Harvard University, 1844, studied law in Greenfield, Mass., afterwards a year at the Harvard Law School, and, having completed his studies in the office of his uncle, Henry H. Fuller, Esq., in Boston, was admitted to the bar on examination in open court, December, 1846, at the age of twenty-two. He became, and continued for two years to be, the law partner of his uncle, and subsequently practised law with success in Boston. Having been fitted for college, at the age of sixteen he entered a store in Boston, at the solicitation of his family; but mercantile life proving distasteful to him, be relinquished it at the end of one year. By severe application, he in six months made up for this lost year, at the same time keeping pace with the studies of the Sophomore class, and was admitted to college in the middle of the Sophomore year. He graduated the second or third scholar of his class. He died at his country home in Wayland, May 30, 1869. He had a taste for literature, was deeply religious, and an ardent lover of nature. One of his greatest pleasures was to walk in the early morning through woods and fields accompanied by his children. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Eddie would study law for a year in the Dane Law School, then for a couple of years in New-York — and in 1848 would be admitted to practice in the courts of New York.
Benjamin Apthorp Gould graduated (he had studied mathematics and the physical sciences under Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics Benjamin Peirce).
Augustus Goddard Peabody graduated from the Harvard Medical School.
Professor of Greek Literature Cornelius Conway Felton prepared an English translation of Eduard Munk’s 1834 DIE METRIK DER GRIECHEN UND RÖMER, as METRES OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
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BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1845
George Phillips Bond, George Frisbie Hoar, son of Concord’s Squire Samuel Hoar, and Gorham Bartlett, son of Concord’s Dr. Josiah Bartlett, graduated from Harvard College. NEW “HARVARD MEN”
Benjamin Apthorp Gould went to Germany to study mathematics and astronomy under Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss at the University of Göttingen (he would make himself the 1st American to earn a doctorate in this field).
The following tabulation would be Horace Rice Hosmer’s sarcastic take on a Franklin Benjamin Sanborn piece of eugenic engineering (and piece of typical Concord conceit), to wit, “Perpetuity, indeed, and hereditary transmission of everything that by nature and good sense can be inherited, are among the characteristics of Concord”:
The Harvard Apples that do or do not fall far from the Tree
CLASS NAME FATHER SON
1834 George Moore Abel Moore, the county sheriff in Concord, “Mason by trade and rich” “came from Sudbury a rich farmer”
1835 Hiram Barrett Dennis “came from Boston because he was a drunkard” “died a drunkard’s death when about 30”
1835 Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar Judge Samuel Hoar “came from Lincoln a rich lawyer”
1837 Henry D. Thoreau “little, deaf pencil maker” “never free from pecuniary difficulties the greater part of his life”
1841 John Shepard Keyes John Keyes, founder of The Republican during “Lawyer” [State Senator, District Judge] the 1840 election, “came from Westford”
1844 George M. Brooks “came from Lincoln” “Lawyer” [Judge]
1844 Edward Sherman Hoar “came from Lincoln a rich lawyer” “brother of Ebenezer R. Hoar”
1845 Gorham Bartlett Dr. Josiah Bartlett, the Thoreau family physi- [a pupil in Concord Academy cian, who became a] “Doctor” “came from Chelmsford”
1846 George Frisbie Hoar “came from Lincoln a rich lawyer” “brother of Ebenezer R. Hoar”
1847 George Haywood Dr. Abiel Heywood, long term town clerk “was a Doctor, and wealthy, and chairman of the Concord Board of Selectmen of Concord”
1849 Joseph Boyden Keyes “brother of Thomas L. Keyes” became a lawyer
1851 Nathan H. Barrett Captain Nathan Barrett Nathan Henry Barrett became a govern- “was a rich farmer of Concord” ment clerk HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1848
Benjamin Apthorp Gould earned the PhD degree at the University of Göttingen, in astronomy. He had already published some 20 papers on comets and asteroids.
Rudolf Wolf began keeping systematic records of individual sunspots and of spot groupings. Wolf would consult the historical record in an attempt to establish a database on cyclic variations of the past. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1849
A 7th edition of Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, A.M.’s revision to Elijah Hinsdale Burritt, A.M.’s THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS, AND CLASS BOOK OF ASTRONOMY; ACCOMPANIED BY A CELESTIAL ATLAS. BY ELIJAH H. BURRITT, A.M. FIFTH EDITION. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS DICK, LL.D., AUTHOR OF THE “CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER,” &C (New York).
Benjamin Apthorp Gould started the Astronomical Journal. He would publish this until 1861, and then resume publication in 1885 (the journal still exists).
In this year, Maria Mitchell became the 1st woman to be employed fulltime by the US Nautical Almanac — she was to become a Computer (that’s a job title, like Janitor or Comptroller or Typewriter or Engineer), and assist in computation of the ephemerides of Venus.
Maria Mitchell’s younger brother Henry Mitchell joined the US Coastal Survey (he would map the waters of Nantucket and the harbor of New-York, and during the civil war would help map the coast of North Carolina). HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1852
Benjamin Apthorp Gould (the son) took charge of the longitude department of the United States Coast Survey (to 1867).3
CARTOGRAPHY Friend and Aub of Philadelphia lithographed a new map of Boston and portions of surrounding cities, created out of original surveys by H. McIntyre. This 77 inch by 58 inch lithograph includes not only names of principle residents but also views of principle buildings. In this year, also, M. Dripps of New York and L.N. Ide of Boston published a large survey of Boston drawn by the engineering firm of J. Slatter and B. Callan and lithographed and printed at Ferdinand Mayer’s shop in New York. This 57 inch by 39 inch lithograph depicts the peninsula only, and has its estates and buildings marked out in the fullest detail. In this year also, J.B. Shields published a new map of Boston based upon original surveys by F.C. Sidney. In this year, also, 1 a 9 inch by 5 /2 inch map of the City of Roxbury was created by Charles H. Poole and engraved by Edward A. Teulon for the new Roxbury DIRECTORY.4
3. This amounts in effect to taking personal responsibility for the resolution of just about the most famously intransigent problem, ever. 4.This would be revised annually until the cities of Roxbury and Boston united in 1868. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
February 2, Monday: Henry Thoreau returned the Loudon volume ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PLANTS to the Boston Society of Natural History and checked out, from Harvard Library, Carl von Linné’s CAROLI LINNÆ ... PHILOSOPHIA BOTANICA (1751).
He also checked out Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de Lahontan’s NOUVEAUX VOYAGES DE MR. LE BARON DE LAHONTAN DANS L’AMÉRIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE, QUI CONTIENNENT UNE RÉLATION DES DIFFÉRENS PEUPLES QUI Y HABITENT; LA NATURE DE LEUR GOUVERNEMENT; LEUR COMMERCE, LEURS COUTUMES, LEUR RELIGION, & LEUR MANIÉRE DE FAIRE LA GUERRE. L’INTÉRÊT DES FRANÇOIS & DES ANGLOIS DANS LE COMMERCE QU’ILS FONT AVEC SES NATIONS; L’AVANTAGE QUE L’ANGLETERRE PEUT RETIRER DANS CE PAÏS, ÉTANT EN GUERRE AVEC LA FRANCE. LE TOUT ENRICHI DE CARTES & DE FIGURES. TOME PREMIER (A. La Haye, chez les Fréres l’Honoré, Marchands Libraires, 1703) MEMOIRES ... (VOL. I)
and MEMOIRES DE L’AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONNALE, OU LA SUITE DES VOYAGES DE MR. LE BARON DE LA HONTAN. QUI CONTIENNENT LA DEFCRIPTION D’UNE GRANDE ÉTENDUË DE PAÏS DE CE CONTINENT, L’INTÉRÊT DES FRANÇOIS & DES ANGLOIS, LEURS COMMERCES, LEURS NAVIGATIONS, LEURS MŒURS & LES COÛTUMES DES SAUVAGES, &C. AVEC UN PETIT DICTIONAIRE DE LA LANGUE DU PAÏS. LE TOUT ENRICHI DE CARTES & DE FIGURES. TOME SECOND. (A. La Haye, chez les Fréres l’Honoré, Marchands Libraires, 1703), making his notes in his Indian Notebook #5 and his Fact Book. MEMOIRES ... (VOL. II)
“There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away” — Emily Dickinson HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
On this day, as is clear from entries in his Fact Book, he had perused an article in the Boston Daily Evening Traveller, by Benjamin Apthorp Gould the son, headlined “The Progress of Astronomy During the Last Half Century.” It is clear also in his journal entry, that he was concurrently reading in the 5th edition of Sir Francis B. Head, Bart.’s THE EMIGRANT (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1847). THE EMIGRANT HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
KEY: existing white settlements in boldface, future white settlements in italics HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
February 2, Monday: Sir Francis Head says that in America “the moon looks larger” than in Europe Here then more moonshine is to be expected– Perhaps the sun looks larger also. Such are the advantages of the new World. The same writer says “the heavens of America appear infinitely higher” – – “the stars are brighter”– These too are encouraging facts – symbolical of the height to which the philosophy & poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length perchance the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind – and the intimations that star it will appear as much brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man – and that there is something in the Mt air that feeds the spirit – & inspires. We shall be more imaginative– We shall be clearer as our sky – bluer, fresher, broader & more comprehensive in our understanding – like our plains– Our intellect on a grander scale – like our thunder & lightning – our rivers & our lakes – & mts & forests. Are not these advantages? Will not man grow to greater perfection, intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? Sir F. Head thinks that the greater cold –equal to 13 degrees of Lat.– in this country is owing to the extensive forests which prevent the sun & wind from melting the snows –which therefore accumulate on the ground– and creates a cold stratum of air which blown to warmer ones by the N W wind condenses the last into snow– But in Concord woods at any rate the snow – (in the winter) – melts faster – & beside is not so deep as in the fields. Not so toward Spring – on the N sides of hills & in hollows– At any rate I think he has not allowed enough for the warmth of the woods. The moose (& beaver?) will perchance one day become extinct – but how naturally would a future poet imagine or sculptor carve a fabulous animal with such branching & leafy horns – (when this will in fact exist as a fossil relic) His horns a sort of fucus in bone– –or a lichen. The Elk (moose) may stand with the Gryphon & Dragon & Dodo &c. &c. The fire-flies & bright plumaged birds! do not they too indicate the peculiarities of the future American Head “felt that there was something indescribably awful & apalling in all these bestial, birdal, and piscal precautions” at the approach of winter– Going into winter quarters – migrating &c. Head coming to Canada in the winter to a house in the fields covered with snow did not know that he was surrounded by a lawn & garden – with gravelled walks – flowers & shrubbery – till the spring thawed the snow. The race that settles & clears the land has got to deal with every tree in the forest in succession– It must be resolute & industrious – and even the stumps must be got out or are– It is a thorough process – this war with the wilderness – breaking nature taming the soil – feeding it on oats The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it & let in the light – grub it up & raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him. It is natural that we should be enterprising – for we are descended from the enterprising – who sought to better their fortunes in the new world The Yankee has no leisure to touch his hat to you even if he were so disposed
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1855
Benjamin Apthorp Gould became the director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, New York (until 1859).
ASTRONOMY
David Alter described the spectra of hydrogen and other gases.
HISTORY OF OPTICS HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1859
Thomas Devine, head of the Surveys Branch of Upper Canada, published the 1st official map of Canada, entitled “Government Map of Canada from the Red River to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.” He apparently used Dr. Logan’s base map (see 1853-56) to position western detail.
The Six Mile Square survey township system was commenced in northern Ontario. Each township was divided into 36 sections almost identical to the American township system.
Benjamin Apthorp Gould (senior) died.
Benjamin Apthorp Gould (the son) published a discussion of the places and proper motions of circumpolar stars to be used as standards for the determination of longitude by the United States Coast Survey. CARTOGRAPHY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1861
As civil war broke out and Brooklyn’s attention was drawn to the conflict, the Brooklyn Eagle of course began making money hand over fist. There was a Grand Jury inquiry to determine whether several presses including it were guilty of disloyalty, and of encouraging the enemy by urging the North to give in to the demands of the Southrons. The Eagle of course argued indignantly on behalf of its freedoms of speech and of the press. Although it would not be indicted, the US postmaster general would order the New-York postmaster not to accept any more of its newspapers for mailing (from this year until 1884 Thomas Kinsella would be the tenured editor at this newspaper).
Matthew Fontaine Maury, a native of Virginia, handed in his federal commission in order to serve his native state as Chief of Sea Coast, River and Harbor Defences. When Maury resigned, Lt. James Melville Gilliss came to be in charge at the US Naval Observatory (he had previously been responsible merely for obtaining the observatory’s instruments and books).
Benjamin Apthorp Gould got married with Mary Apthorp Quincy, daughter of the Reverend Josiah Quincy. He undertook the task of preparing for publication the records of astronomical observations made at the US Naval Observatory since 1850. ASTRONOMY
Maury would be sent by the Confederacy to England, Ireland, and France to purchase ships while conducting a propaganda campaign for the South and for peace. He would try desperately through speeches and newspaper articles to get foreign nations to intercede in our fratricidal conflict. Having had experience with the transatlantic cable and electricity flowing through wires underwater while working with Cyrus West Field and Samuel Finley Breese Morse, he put that experience to use by developing an electric “torpedo” (similar to a present-day contact mine) — the Secretary of the Navy would in 1865 acknowledge that his device had “cost the Union more vessels than all other causes combined.” After the surrender, Maury would serve Maximilian in Mexico as “Imperial Commissioner of Immigration” and build the Carlotta and New Virginia Colony for displaced Confederates and immigrants from other lands. He would then accept a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, holding the chair of physics, and write on THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF VIRGINIA. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1862
Benjamin Apthorp Gould was appointed as actuary to the United States Sanitary Commission. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1864
Benjamin Apthorp Gould, with the support of his spouse Mary Apthorp Quincy Gould, was able to create a private observatory at Cambridge at which he might conduct his astronomical studies. ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1866
Benjamin Apthorp Gould was able to employ the Atlantic cable to establish accurate longitude relations between Europe and America. His measurements of Lewis Morris Rutherfurd’s photographs of the Pleiades had made of him one of the pioneers in the use of the camera as an instrument of precision and he would secure, at Córdoba in Argentina, 1,400 negatives of southern star clusters the reduction of which would require the remaining period of his life.
When Biela’s Comet was supposed to appear during this year after not being seen when expected in 1859, it was again nonapparent. It would seem that this comet had disintegrated into what we now experience as the Andromedid meteor shower, a shower that travels in virtually the same orbit and had been being observed at least since 1741. SKY EVENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1868
The Republic of the Argentine charged Benjamin Apthorp Gould to organize at Córdoba a national observatory.5 ASTRONOMY
5. “The Southern Hemisphere holds up half the sky.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1869
Benjamin Apthorp Gould became the initial director of the Argentine National Observatory (today known as the Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba of the National University of Córdoba). While there, he and four assistants would use a newly developed photometric methodology to map the night skies of the southern hemisphere. As if he didn’t have enough to do, in this year he issued a volume of Military and Anthropological Statistics. ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1874
Benjamin Apthorp Gould completed URANOMETRIA ARGENTINA (this massive work would not be published until 1879, and in 1883 would earn him the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society; to see what this was like you might take a look at an updated version of it, at www.uranometriaargentina.com/). ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1877
Jacob Schoellkopf purchased Niagara Falls’s Hydraulic Canal for $71,000.
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s map of the surface features of the planet Mars, which would help touch off the “canals of Mars” furor which would play such a role in the subsequent mythifications of this planet. Actually, in recycling the previous term “canale” as a designator on this map, that term was being utilized more or less as a synonym for river, “fiume,” and thus, to the astronomers involved at least, indicated surface features which were presumably completely natural rather than having been created by some race of extraterrestrial beings. Such a term should have been transliterated from the Italian as “channel” but for egregious reasons it would become “canal.”
ASTRONOMY
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit ... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.” — J. Danforth Quayle HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
Benjamin Apthorp Gould noted a large-scale feature of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our solar system happens to be close to the center of a rotating ring of stars, tilted with respect to the main plane of the Milky Way Galaxy, which this tilted rotating ring includes some of the brightest stars in our night sky.
We have come to characterize this tilted rotating ring as the “Gould Belt.” ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1883
Benjamin Apthorp Gould received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1884
Benjamin Apthorp Gould published a zone-catalogue of 73,160 stars. ASTRONOMY
June 1, Sunday: Benjamin Apthorp Gould made the final definite sighting of the “Great September comet of 1882.” ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
1885
Benjamin Apthorp Gould published a general catalogue compiled from meridian observations of 32,448 stars. He returned from Argentina to Cambridge, Massachusetts. ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1887
Benjamin Apthorp Gould was designated as the initial recipient of a new reward, the James Craig Watson Medal for Valuable Labors in Promoting the Progress of Astronomical Science.
ASTRONOMY THE SCIENCE OF 1887
Harry Govier Seeley theorized that dinosaurs consisted of two varieties: “lizard-hipped” (saurischian) versus “bird-hipped” (ornithischian).
Theodore Boveri described cell division to produce gametes (meiosis).
Worthington George Smith excavated a Bronze Age grave of a mother and child on Dunstable Downs, surrounded by at least 200 fossil sea urchins (he nicknamed the mother Maud, I don’t know why). PALEONTOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
1896
November 26, Thursday: Benjamin Apthorp Gould died at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Two Benjamin Apthorp Goulds HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: October 29, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR.
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with