Land Gift to Harvard from Peru.

The Peruvian Government has offered to give Harvard the land needed for extending the University observatory at Arequipa. In addition, the instruments and equipment for the observatory will be allowed to enter the country free of duty. The President of Peru was led to this action by reading a report by Professor Pickering, showing the need of a large telescope in South America, where the dryness of the atmosphere makes it possible to do the work of a forty-inch telescope with one of twenty inches. The report also showed that the field for astronomical work in the Southern hemisphere is very broad, as comparatively little original work has been done there. Harvard has had an observatory in Peru for fifteen years, and at present it contains twice as much equipment as the observatory at Cambridge.