| 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: Neil Arnott; Edward Frankland; John Peter Gassiot; William Robert Grove; Joseph Dalton Hooker; Leonard Horner; William Hallowes Miller; Richard Owen; John Percy; General Edward Sabine; William Sharpey; Archibald Smith; George Gabriel Stokes; Charles Wheatstone; the President, John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Mr. Grove requested that his resolution on the Rumford Medal contained a correction, which was agreed to. Communication from the Secretary of the Admiralty transmitting a copy of a letter to the senior officer at Rio de Janeiro, offering passage to any English astronomer seeking to journey to St. Paul's or St. Catherine's. Letter from Alfred Austin, Office of Works, 11 May 1858, to Dr. Sharpey, full text entered into the minutes: containing a list of twelve learned societies seeking permission to use rooms in Burlington House for meetings. Draft letter, William Sharpey, to Alfred Austin, full text entered into the minutes: explaining that the three societies occupying Burlington House has considered the use of rooms: at present, only temporary uses could be granted, when these did not interfere with other business; Council would object to any permanent commitments to using rooms for the ordinary meetings of the various societies. Professor Huxley was appointed to deliver the Croonian Lecture on the theory of the vertebrate skull. The Allgemeine Schweizerische Gesellschaft and the Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein fur Sachsen und Thuringen in Halle were placed of the list of institutions entitled to receive Royal Society journals: Proceedings were presented to the Naturforschende Gesellschaft of Berne. The Foreign Secretary noted from a letter of the Academy of Sciences in Munich, that the Academy can only retain such works as are sent in duplicate: agreed that two copies of Royal Society journals should be sent. Mr. Horner read a communication from the Council of the Geological Society, recommending that the Royal Society should make a grant of £100 from the Donation Fund for the excavation of Brixham bone-cavern: agreed on the understanding that any specimens should be deposited in the British Museum. Mr. Grove's motion on Royal Society Medals, it was agreed that in future, suggestions might be made before the formal proposing and seconding of candidates. Two names were added to the list of Foreign Member candidates. Resolved that R.W. Bunsen, Louis Poinsot and Carl Theodor von Siebold be recommended to the Royal Society for election as Foreign Members. |