Observation of New Star.

The Observatory is still watching closely the new star discovered by Dr. Anderson of Edinburgh on February 21. No traces of the presence of this star on February 19 were found by the photographic system in use--by which several pictures of the heavens are taken every night--and it must therefore have burst into its brilliancy within the limit of those two days. This limit no observatory could so accurately determine. Like all new stars the origin can only be explained by theories--one of which is that it is formed by a collision of heavenly bodies; another, that it is in the nature of an eruption perhaps of a volcanic nature.

The investigations, which will continue for weeks, are at present directed to find whether it will follow the course of such temporary stars, which burst into their full brilliancy almost immediately and gradually fade away -- lasting sometimes weeks and sometimes years. The Observatory's first trial shows its brightness to have greatly increased by Friday night over that announced by Dr. Anderson for the preceding evening until on Friday it was much brighter than the polar star. The exact position on three nights has been measured with the meridian circle and the spectrum has been founed by a photographic attachment to the telescope. This has been found to have changed -- a result also obtained by the Lick Observatory.

By the collection of its 100,000 photographs the Harvard Observatory is much better prepared than any other to pursue the past history of the heavens. Some of the best negatives of this collection, which stretch back for fifteen years, have been examined for any traces of the new star but noue as far back as 1887 have been found. Since Friday night the brilliancy has decreased if anything. Since 1887 there have been ten new stars found, eight by the Harvard Observatory and two by Dr. Anderson. In 1891, and at the present time, the stars were discernable to the taked eye, but the only evidences in the world that the rest have existed is contained in this collection.