| 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: Dr. John Bostock; Sir William Burnett; Samuel Hunter Christie; Very Reverend George Peacock, Dean of Ely; Thomas Graham; Sir John William Lubbock; Roderick Murchison; Peter Mark Roget; Sir James Clark Ross; Dr. John Forbes Royle; Dr. William Sharpey; John Taylor; Reverend Robert Walker; John Wrottesley. 2nd Baron Wrottesley; 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. Resolved by ballot that Lieutenant-Colonel Sabine be recommended as Foreign Secretary. Letter from Henry Willock and J.W. Hogg, East India House, 22 May 1845, to the Marquess of Northampton, full text entered into the minutes; on the adoption of a recommendation on the reduction of magnetic observations, the Court will take into consideration measures for that object; Mr. Weld had an interview with Mr. Melvill on this topic and one month's observations from each location were sent, to aid in making an estimate for printing. Letters from Robert Hudson and George Pemberton requesting copies of Philosophical Transactions, denied. Application from Dr. Miller to reproduce plates from Mr. Daniell's paper on the water barometer, granted. Mr. Christie reported on behalf of the Committee on Physics on 'term-days' and this to be communicated to observers by Lieutenant-Colonel Sabine and to the East India Company by Mr. Weld. Mr. Christie reported on other resolutions of the Committee of Physics: recommending that Dr. Wilhelm Mahlmann be adde to the list for the Greenwich Observations; that consideration of the continuation of magnetic and meteorological observations should wait until the extensive correspondence between interested parties was concluded and the views of eminent foreigners visiting England in June was sought; that the reduction of observations was greatly in arrear and recommendation should be made to the Master-General of Ordnance to increase the establishment. Letter from George Biddell Airy, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 7 May 1845, to George Peacock, Dean of Ely, full text entered into the minutes: giving reasons for the continuation of the Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory attached to Greenwich. Letter from George Biddell Airy, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 10 March 1845, to Samuel Hunter Christie, full text entered into the minutes: asking if the Society would bear the cost of extra copies of the map of tides in Ireland; agreed. |