  We study the thermodynamical properties of a mesoscopic Fermi gas in view of
recent possibilities to trap ultracold atoms in a harmonic potential. We focus
on the effects of shell closure for finite small atom numbers. The dependence
of the chemical potential, the specific heat and the density distribution on
particle number and temperature is obtained. Isotropic and anisotropic traps
are compared. Possibilities of experimental observations are discussed.
