Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Augustus Addison Gould

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1700384Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition — Augustus Addison Gould

GOULD, Augustus Addison (1805–1866), American conchologist, was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, April 23, 1805, graduated at Harvard College in 1825, and took his degree of doctor of medicine in 1830. Thrown from boyhood on his own exertions, it was only by industry, perseverance, and self-denial that he obtained the means to pursue his earlier and later studies. Establishing himself in Boston, he devoted himself to the practice of medicine, and finally rose to high professional rank and social posi tion. He became president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and was employed as authority in editing the vital statistics of the state. As a conchologist his repu tation is world-wide. With Say, Conrad, Adams, Anthony, Lea, Binney, and others, ho was c. pioneer of the science in America. His writings fill many pages of the publica tions of the Boston Society of Natural History (see vol. xi. p. 197 for a list) and other periodicals. He published with Agassiz the Principles of Zoology ; he edited the Terrestrial Air-breathing Mollusks of Binney; he translated Lamarck s Genera of Shells. The two most important monuments to his scientific work, however, are The Mol lusks and Shells of the United States exploring expedition under Commodore Wilkes, published by the Government, and the Report on the Invertebrata published by order of the legislature of Massachusetts in 1841. A second edition of the latter work was authorized in 1865, and published in 1870 after the author s death, which took place at Boston, September 18, 1866. Gould was an active member of the Boston Society of Natural History, and a corre sponding member of all the prominent American scientific societies, and many of those of Europe, including the English Royal Society.