| 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: William Benjamin Carpenter; Arthur Cayley; Arthur Farre; William Robert Grove; William Hopkins; William Allen Miller; William Hallowes Miller; Lyon Playfair; the Reverend Bartholomew Price; Sir James Clark Ross; General Edward Sabine; William Sharpey; John Stenhouse; George Gabriel Stokes; John Tyndall; the President, John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. New Members of Council made and subscribed to the Declaration in lieu of the Oath. Re-appointment of the Library Committee, with a list of members and budget. Minutes of a meeting of the Committee appointed to carry out arrangements for the removal of the Society to Burlington House, 5 December 1856, full text entered into the minutes: noting that the Society had been put in control of the main building at Burlington House, with a list of rooms assigned to the Linnean Society and the Chemical Society; arrangements for the rooms reserved for the Royal Society are submitted for the approval of Council; with minutes of a second meeting, 17 December 1856 discusing estimates for Library fittings and gas fittings; the reports approved with further steps noted. Mr. Faraday appointed to deliver the Bakerian Lecture for the present session on experimental relations of gold and other metals to light. Letter from Lord Brougham requesting permission to take a cast from the death mask of Sir Isaac Newton: the Officers to take an opinion from an artist on the practicability of doing this. Donation of 2 guineas made to the parochial schools at Mablethorpe. Letter from Dr. Arnott requesting arrears of the Philosophical Transactions for the last five years. |