| 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: Sir John Barrow; Thomas Bell; William Henry Brande; Dr. Richard Bright; Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie; Samuel Hunter Christie; John Frederic Daniell; William Henry Fitton; Sir John William Lubbock; Richard Phillips; Reverend Baden Powell; Peter Mark Roget; Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Sabine; Lieutenant-Colonel William Henry Sykes; Reverend Robert Willis; 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 Francis Corbaux, 59 Upper Norton Street, 20 March 1841, to President and Council of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: requesting to be removed from the list of Fellows, due to infirmities and other circumstances. Letter from John Barrow, Admiralty, 31 March 1841, to Peter Mark Roget, full text entered into the minutes: sending specimens from Captain James Ross of H.M.S. Erebus, with associated papers; resolved that the Secretary write to the Admiralty to discover if the specimens should be distributed and under what conditions; and that Robert McCormick's papers on Kerguelen's Land be read to the Royal Society. Resolved that application be made to the Astronomer Royal for 25 copies of the Greenwich Observations, for distribution. Resolved that Mr. Tucker, bookbinder, be paid £100 on account. Letter from Charles Blacker Vignoles, 4 Trafalgar Square, London, 25 March 1841, full text entered into the minutes: on his donation of a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton by Vanderbank, with a brief account of its provenance; the donation accepted with thanks. Plan and estimate for the publication of returns from the Ordnance Magnetic Observatories, presented by Edward Sabine to Sir Husey Vivian laid before Council, full text entered into the minutes. Resolved that rapid publication of the Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania; Lutruwita or Truwana] Magnetic Observatory be suggested to the Admiralty. Mr. Christie reported that that the Committee on Astronomy could not take steps to rate Dr. Knorr's pendulum: Council requested that the Committee should consider a proper place for conducting invariable pendulum experiments. Letter from J. W. MacDonald, Dublin Castle, 31 March 1841, to the Secretaries of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: requesting a copy of the Charter and Bye-Laws of the Royal Society, so that Commissioners might consider the best method of applying the grant made to the Royal Dublin Society; with a list of the Commissioners. |