| 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: Thomas Bell; William Bowman; Charles Brooke; James Challis; Samuel Hunter Christie; William Clark; Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton; George Peacock, Dean of Ely; John Peter Gassiot; Sir John Frederick William Herschel; William Hallows Miller; Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Portlock; Colonel Edward Sabine; Edward Solly; William Spence; Captain William Henry Smyth; the President, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. List of candidates for election to the Fellowship to be recommended to the Society. Draft letter, Royal Society, Somerset House, 10 May 1852, to Henry Unwin Addington, full text entered into the minutes: in response to Unwin's letter and transmitted documents on a system of international meteorology, the President and Council would not recommend a uniform plan of instruments and observations, since these are already underway in organised establishments funded by foreign governments, and their observations are reduced and published; the 1845 conference held at Cambridge is noted, with its international attendees; the suggestions of Lieutenant Maury deserve the attention of the Admiralty, and the improvements in trade by understanding winds and currents are described; every ship under the control of the Admiralty should be furnished with instruments and instructions, the results of which should be transmitted to the Hydrographer's Office, with prompt communication to the United Stated equivalent. Letter from Richard Sheepshanks, Athenaeum, 27 April 1852, to the Earl of Rosse, full text entered into the minutes: Miss Sophie Schumacher, the favourite child of the late Professor Schumacher has commissioned him to obtain a daguerreotype copy of the Society's portrait and he asks permission to proceed by taking the unframed picture to [Antoine] Claudet; the request granted. Letter from Mr. Graham applying for a grant of £100 from the Donation Fund for the publication of an English edition of the German Annual Report of the Progress of Chemistry and Collatoral Sciences by Liebig and Kopp, the request not granted. Application from Mr. Cooper for a grant of £15 from the Donation Fund for the purchase of sixty copies of Mr. Cooper's Catalogue of Cometic Orbits, granted. |