COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
        INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS

                     NUMBER 420

                             Konkoly Observatory
                             Budapest
                             1970 February 20


       THE 3323 VARIABLE STARS IN OR PROJECTED
ON THE MAGELLANIC CLOUDS DOWN TO -0.8 ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE


      From 1895 till 1950 the Harvard College Observatory
searched variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds, rounding
up more than 3000 variables to which 150 were added during
the investigation from 1962 performed by Cecilia Payne-
Gaposhkin and myself. We thoroughly "sieved" all announced
variables by making more than two million photographic and
more than 10,000 photovisual observations on some 2000
plates. The final results are in the table, expressing the
distribution of eleven classes of variability in the two
nearest galaxies.

Class of Variables    Large Magellanic   Small Magellanic
                      Cloud               Cloud

Classical Cepheids   1128                1116
Irregular Normal      314                 162
Irregular Important   88                  ?
Eclipsing Variables   76                  32
Questionables         72                  25
Long Periodic	      50                  24
Possibly Cepheid      33                  60
RR Lyrae Variables    30                  31
Link-Cepheids         2?*                 39
Undecodes             23		  ?
W Virginis            16                  2
________________________________________________
Total                1832                1491


*These are AR Lyrae in one of the mini star clusters and
included as the Link-Cepheids only because this cluster is
situated almost exactly between the Cloud and the Milky
Way.



                           SIRGAY GAPOSHKIN
                        Harvard College Observatory