| Description | Present at the meeting: Francis Baily Esq., Vice President and Treasurer in the chair; Mr Airy; Mr Christie; Dr Roget
Read the letter of Lieutenant Dennison of 8 March 1837 addressed to the Council of the Royal Society and referred by them to this committee
' Resolved:
1. That it be recommended to the Council to accept the offer of the Master General of the Ordnance referred to in Lieutenant Dennison's letter
2. That it would greatly advance our knowledge of Terrestrial Magnetism of magnetic observations according to the plan proposed by Baron Humboldt in his letter addressed to HRH the President of the Royal Society in April last were made at the following places, those places being permanent stations whence officers of Engineers and Clerks are always to be found viz. Gibraltar, Corfu, Ceylon, Hobbart Town, Jamaica, Barbados, Newfoundland and Toronto, and the Cape of Good Hope.
3. That for the purposes of carrying this object into effect, it be recommended to the Council to apply to His Majesty's Government for the requisite instruments.
4. For the present the observations of magnetism may be limited to those of the direction of the horizontal needle
5. For the present the Meteorological Observations may be restricted to observations made on the Four days, and in the manner recommended in Sir John Herschel's Instructions
6. It appears to this Committee that the expence of instruments for such purpose will not exceed Thirty pounds for each station
7. In the opinion of the Committee, the thanks of the Council are firstly due to Lieut Dennison for the zealand liberality with which he has brought the subject before His Majesty's Government and the Royal Society. ' |