Upon Mt. Wilson, in California, in north latitude, and Mt. Harvard, in Peru, in south latitude, stand other unpretentious buildings, from within which observers of the Harvard corps nightly search through the translucent upper atmosphere of those regions to the respective poles. This aggregation of means has yielded ample returns; to say which is to signify that during the period under consideration the institution has made a noteworthy record, and that its affairs have been guided with befitting skill and judgment. The total permanent funds at the beginning of the present term amounted to about $170,000. The subscription for five years was intended for immediate expenditure. At the end of that period a permanent fund of $50,000 was obtained in like manner. In 1885 was added to the permanent funds the bequest of Robert Treat Paine of his whole estate, of which $164,198 became at once available. In 1886 was made the first of a series of annual gifts of large sums of money by Mrs. Anna P. Draper of New York as a memorial of her husband, the late Prof. Henry Draper. These gifts have constantly been applied in furtherance of photographical observation, especially in that line of investigation which Dr. Draper himself began in his lifetime. In 1887 the bequest of Uriah A. Boyden, amounting to $238,000, became available. This bequest has conditions providing for astronomical work at considerable elevations as free as possible from disturbing or obstructing conditions of atmosphere. The income of the Paine fund may be applied generally. In pursuing the inquiries thus suggested, and others, the observatory has adhered to its traditions, wherein original investigation has been directed to the physical rather than the mathematical side of astronomical science. In his first annual report the present director outlined the immediate policy, in the then restricted state of the finances, to be to keep employed chiefly the two most costly and effective instruments, the great equatorial and the meridian circle. The latter was already in constant use in the work of the Cambridge zone. With reference to the former, the report having named the several specialties which the great observatories of this country had taken, each to itself, said: “Photometry offers a field almost wholly unexplored with large telescopes either in this country or abroad. It has therefore been selected as that to which the greater portion of the time of our telescope will be devoted.”