| 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: Captain William de Wiveleslie Abney; George Carey Foster; Michael Foster; Sir Archibald Geikie; Richard Tetley Glazebrook; Frederick Ducane Godman; John Hopkinson; Joseph Norman Lockyer; William Davidson Niven; William Henry Perkin; Bartholomew Price; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Adam Sedgwick; William Augustus Tilden; the Treasurer, Sir John Evans; the President, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Death of Henry Tibbats Stainton. New members of Council subscribe to the declaration in lieu of the oath. Appointment of Vice-Presidents. Re-appointment of committees with lists of committee membership: Library Committee, Soiree and House Committee, Catalogue of Scientific Papers Committee, Challenger Committee, Colour-vision Committee, Mountain Observatory Committee, Water Research Committee, Joule Fund Committee. Mr. Kempe and Dr. Pye-Smith appointed to the Government Grant Committee. Letter from the Admiralty, requesting that a Fellow be nominated to confer on arrangements for the Eclipse Expedition, J. Norman Lockyer nominated. Letter from the Eclipse Committee asking if anything more had been heard from the Portuguese Government about Ceara; the Secretary to write to the Foreign Office. Letter from the Royal Horticultural Society requesting an approach to London County Council to investigate the nature of fogs. Memorandum of Association of the Kew Committee tabled and to be sent to the Board of Trade. Report of the Library Committee, including the disposal of non-scientific stock to other institutions and exchanges of journals. Professor H. B. Dixon to be invited to deliver the Bakerian Lecture on 'The rate of explosion in gases' and either Professor Virchow or Professor Herzen to be invited to give the Croonian Lecture. Note on obtaining a pension for Mr. Whipple. £30 from the Donation Fund granted to Sir Archibald Geikie for a British Association Committee on high level shell beds in Scotland. Captain Abney to represent the Society as a delegate to the 150th anniversary of the American Philosophical Society, a similar invitation from Danzig tabled. Arrears of Philosophical Transactions numbers granted to the Royal Institute for British Architects. Leave granted to W. H. White to extract from Oldenburg's letters and to others for electrotypes of illustrations. Letter of thanks from Sir William Flower on the presentation of a fossil Pareiasaurus. Donation of Mr. Howard Collins suggested to be made over to Mr. Lin Cheng. Captain Abney to confer with Officers on the purchase of a projection microscope for Society meetings. Letter from Ludwig Mond to the President read, offering £2,000 to assist in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers, the Treasurer to recruit an additional cataloguer and two copyists; discussion of the Catalogue deferred. Treasurer's report on stock purchasing for Trusts. Salary increases for Herbert Rix, Mr. James, Mr. White and Mr. Chapman; increase for Miss Chambers of the Catalogue Department. Bills from Johnson Matthey & Company for medals and to Gordon Hotels for the Anniversary Dinner. |