| 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: Francis Baily; Thomas Bell; Samuel Hunter Christie; John Frederick Daniell; Bryan Donkin; Thomas Galloway; Thomas Graham; John William Lubbock; Peter Mark Roget; Major Edward Sabine; Dr. Richard Bently Todd; the President, Spencer Joshua Alwyn Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Letter from Robert Kane, Dublin, 2 June 1840, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: Kane is conducting researches into platinum and palladium and requests 12 ounces of palladium from William Hyde Wollaston's bequest, granted. Read a letter fom Thomas Carlyle and E. M. Fitzgerald. Mr. Henderson applied for an extension to admission to the Fellowship, granted. Consideration of nominations for Foreign Membership deferred. Resolution of the Commmittee of Physics including Meteorology on the proposed Hammerfest Observatory. Report from the Committee of Physics on intelligence from M. Kupffer in St. Petersburg on nine magnetic observatories and a tenth in Pekin. Letter from Charles Folsom, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, 22 April 1840, to William Henry Smyth, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: $1,000 had been allocated for the purchase of instruments to be used at Harvard and requesting instructions for magnetic observation published by the Society; thanks to be expressed to Mr. Folsom. Resolved to award Royal Medals for 1843 to the best papers on Physics, and Geology and Mineralogy. Fifty copies of the Report of the Committe of Physics including Meteorology to be presented to the Admiralty and the East India Company; with copies to Members of Council, Foreign Members and others. Statutes to be reprinted in octavo form. Application from Major Sabine on behalf of the Admiralty for 100 private copies of his paper 'Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism', and 50 copies for himself, granted. A biill for alterations to grates and stoves ordered to be paid. Letter from R. Vernon Smith, Downing Street, 25 April 1840, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: transmitting a series of meteorological observations taken in Mauritius by Captain Lloyd. |