Professor Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the distinguished astronomer, died at his residence in this city on Thursday, at the age of seventy-two.

Professor Gould was born in Boston in the year 1824, the son of the late Benjamin Apthorp Gould and Lucretia Dana Goddard. In his youth he showed a taste for botany and when but ten years old wrote a lecture upon electricity, and his subsequent school career was one of high distinction. At nineteen he graduated from Harvard and for five years studied here and abroad. His study of astronomy was pursued under Gauss and in the scientific courses of Paris, also in the observatory there, then under the direction of Arago. On returning to America he was employed to determine astronomically the various geodetic stations of the U. S. coast survey. He was among the first to use electricity for the purpose of determining differences of longitude. He contributed constantly meanwhile to astronomical science, and did very much to arouse the now widespread interest in astronomy throughout this country. From 1847 to 1861 he maintained at his own expense the first astronomical journal published in the U. S. and between 1855 and 1858 he organized the Dudley Observatory in Albany. Under the auspices of the Argentine Republic and at the sacrifice of all personal comforts and considerations, he founded at Cordova a splendidly equipped observatory. He had also thrown a light upon the climatic conditions of South America, and established a net work of meteorological stations extending on one side from the tropics to Terra del Fuego, and on the other side from the Andes to the Atlantic.

The funeral will be held at the First Parish Church, Harvard Square, on Sunday at two o'clock.