Further progress in the expansion of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory was announced yesterday by Harlow Shapley, director of the Observatory and Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy.
"The new library building is now complete and we shall put into it our priceless collection of celestial photographs when we move into it in the first week of February," Professor Shapley said. "By the addition of the building to our present cramped quarters, which is larger than the rest of the station combined, we shall gain seven offices and a lecture room, besides the housing for the books and photographs."
The bulk of the new structure consists of one large room with its ceiling three stories high. Into this chamber a complete three story building made of steel framework will be assembed during the coming vacation. This 'house within a house' construction will permit a greater degree of safety from fire and moisture, the greatest dangers to the collection to star photographs which can never again be reproduced."
"We received on Saturday a reflecting mirror of 60 inches diameter for use in the telescope now being built for us. We will use this reflector, which was sent by Harlan T. Stetson, of the Ohio Methodist University, and which is worth about $60,000, until the new one is ready for installation, which will not be till 1933. The telescope when complete will be the most powerful in the East."
Owing to cold, the only activity in the building of the new astronomical colony at Harvard, Massachusetts, is the boring of a deep artesian well. Early in the spring two cottages for staff members will be built, and two of the smaller telescopes of the Observatory will be moved out.
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