Miss Annie J. Cannon of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory has received from Groningen University in Holland an honorary doctor's degree in mathematics and astronomy, in acknowledgment of her work in the study of stellar spectra. She is believed to be one of the first American women to receive such a distinction from a European university for scientific work.

Miss Cannon has long been regarded as a leading American woman astronomer. She was graduated from Wellesley in 1884, and has been associated with the Harvard Observatory since 1897. During this time she has completed a monumental catalogue of the spectra of some 220,000 stars all over the heavens, which when published will occupy nine quarto volumes. No such comprehensive study has ever been made before. She has also discovered three new stars, and 150 variable stars, and has completed a bibliography of variable stars containing about 45,000 references.

She is now in this country, and will not have to go to Holland to receive the degree.