NEW BUILDING GIVEN TO ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT

Donations from Harvard University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and many friends, have enabled the construction of a new main building for the Harvard Observatory and the creation of the Pickering Fund to aid the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

The new building will be connected with the present main hall of the observatory, and will replace the latter in part. It combines an office building, the largest astronomical library in the world, and a vault that will hold the present plates of stars, and those to be developed for the next 30 years. There are almost 400,000 plates now. The hall is to be built this summer.

The American Association of Variable Star Observers, which was founded by Professor Pickering, head of the observatory for 40 years, is to be subsidized partly by the funds that the observatory has been given, and partly by donations given to it directly. The combination of these two sums of money will be known as the Pickering Memorial Fund.

Aided by this endowment, the Association will be able to carry on its work in observing variable stars all over the world in collaboration with the Harvard Observatory.