Gift to the Observatory.

Professor Pickering has announced an anonymous gift to the Observatory of $20,000, with no conditions attached as to its expenditure. It is proposed to use $10,000 immediately to erect an extension to the building in which the 115,000 valuable photographic negatives belonging to the Observatory are kept. The present building's accommodations have for a long time been insufficient for the housing of this collection of negatives which furnish a history of the entire stellar universe for the past twelve years and which is not duplicated anywhere in the world.

A portion of the remaining $10,000 is to be employed at once in a minute study of the stellar photographs, and the remainder will be set aside as a reserve fund.