The annual report of Prof. E. C. Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, has just been made. The report is quite lengthy and gives complete details of the work done at the observatory during the year. The corps of assistants has been doubled, and nearly as many volumes of annals have been distributed as appeared during the previous thirty years of the history of the observatory. The accumulation of unreduced observations has been greatly diminished, and the eight quarto volumes required for the work still unpublished will be mainly occupied with material now almost ready for printing, except that part which relates to recent observations. On the cessation of the present subscription, the observatory must revert to its former restricted condition, unless relieved by fresh assistance. A new subscription toward a permanent fund of $100,000 has recently been set on foot, with good prospects of success. About $20,000 have already been promised in case similar promises can be obtained for the remainder of the sum required.