| Description | Printed minutes containing matters laid before Council, the Royal Society's governing body of Fellows, with records of decisions taken.
Commencing with a list of Council members present: Neil Arnott; Francis Baily; William Thomas Brande; Dr. Richard Bright; Samuel Hunter Christie; John Frederic Daniell; William Henry Fitton; William Hopkins; Dr. Gideon Mantell; William Haseldine Pepys; Reverend Baden Powell; George Rennie; Peter Mark Roget; Lieutenant-Colonel William Henry Sykes; Charles Wheatstone; Reverend Robert Willis; the Treasurer, Sir John William Lubbock, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. On consideration of the report of the Committee of Physics, including Meteorology, Council do not judge it expedient to occupy Kew Observatory; the Treasurer to make this known to the Commissioners of the Woods and Forests. Resolved that a committee be appointed to consider and report on the mode of employing the Donation Fund. The bill of Mr. Dollond for a telescope at £53 6s., to be paid from the Donation Fund. Request from Sir David Brewster that the balance of the £100 grant from the Donation Fund be paid to him for the purchase of apparatus, granted. Dr. Fitton gave notice of a resolution for next Council on limiting the period of recommendation for election to the Presidency to two years. Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes reported that at a meeting of the Society on 10 February, one Fellow inquired whether Council should eject William John Bankes, there being 'sufficient cause of a public and notorious nature', Council resolved to put the matter to the Society. The Duke of Sussex presented to the Society, in his name and in that of the subscribers, a bust of Mary Somerville by Sir Francis Chantrey. Gideon Mantell requested the loan of Dumont D'Urville's Voyage de 'Astrolabe volume 4, granted. Letter from the Astronomer Royal requesting copies of the Greenwich Observations on behalf of the Turin Observatory, granted. Application from T. P. Pratt for an extension to the period for admission to the Fellowship, granted. |