Observatory

The Perkin Fund last month donated the $1.5 million needed for the construction of a new building at the Harvard College Observatory, the University News Service announced yesterday.

The gift, which was made through the Program for Science, will provide nearly half of the funds needed to construct the $32 million building.

The fund is named after the late Richard S. Perkin a member for over 30 years of the Board of Overseers' Committee to Visit the Observatory, and a founder and Chairman of the Board of the Perkin Elmar Corporation. Perkin provided for the fund in his will.

Previous grants. including $1 million from the National Science Foundation, will supply the rest of the required funds. Construction of the building, which will be named after Perkin, should begin in January and be completed by the fall of 1971.

Eclipse

A team of Harvard Observatory scientists is now preparing for a trip south this spring to study a three and a half minute solar eclipse from a base near Oaxaca, Mexico.

Jay M. Pasachoff. a research fellow in Astronomy helping to organize Harvard's team, said that there would be two openings on the expedition staff for interested graduate students or seniors. A National Geographic Society grant will cover all travel and lodging expenses for the team-students included.

Those interested in joining the expedition should apply in writing to Pasachoff as soon as possible. Scientific preparation in Mexico will begin about a month before the eclipse takes place on March 7.

Paschoff said that the Harvard team will be mainly concerned with observations of the solar corona-the vast outer atmosphere of the sun-with a spectrograph which he is building with Donald H. Menzel, professor of Astrophysies.

The eclipse will also be visible from Nantucket and along a band south to Mexico Scientists from all over the world will meet at Oaxaca. however. because the chance of cloud cover is smaller there than elsewhere along the band.

Marijuana

According to a Harvard professor. "very little attention has been given to the possibility that marijuana might protect some people from psychosis."

In the current issue of Scientific America, Lester Grinspoon. associate professor of Clinical Psychology, calls the public attitude toward marijuana "charged with a hyperemotional bias."

Grinspoon attributes the popular prejudices against grass to the propaganda campaign waged by the Federal Burean of Narcoties during the 1930's and to America's puritanical attitude toward the pursuit of pleasure.

"Marijuana's effect in producing a state of introspection and bodily passivity is repellent to a cultural tradition that prizes activity, aggressiveness and advancement." Grinspoon says in his article.

Grinspoon also attacks popular conceptions about the effect of grass on its users. Research. he agrees, has not yet produced any proof that smoking pot leads to violent behavior, sexual debauchery, or even to harder drugs. and there have been studies that give evidence to the contrary.

Grinspoon feels that the greatest charge against the popular drug has been that it may lead to depression or psychosis. However. he says, most of the studies conducted have been conducted on persous with a history of mental illness.

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