| 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; Benjamin Collins Brodie; Charles Brooke; Samuel Hunter Christie; John Peter Gassiot; Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Portlock; Captain William Henry Smyth; Edward Solly; William Spence; Nathaniel Wallich; the Treasurer and Vice-President, Colonel Edward Sabine, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting and of the special meeting were read and confirmed. Suggestions of candidates for the award of Royal Society Medals: Alexander von Humboldt was proposed for a Copley Medal by Mr. Christie and seconded by Mr. Bell: Captain Smyth asked to draw up a note of Humboldt's scientific services; George Gabriel Stokes proposed for a Rumford Medal by Mr. Gassiot and seconded by Mr. Brodie. The award of Royal Medals was discussed, the subject of physics to be resumed at the next meeting, while no paper in geology came within the terms of the award this year: lists of papers from Philosophical Transactions in these subjects to be drawn up and circulated. List of proposed Council Members for the ensuing year presented, to be considered at the next meeting. Letter from William Hallowes Miller stating that Professor Listing of Gottingen was offering to sell the Society a portrait of Professor Gauss: the reply to be that the Society had no funds for the purpose. Letter from the Dean of Westminster tendering his resignation from the Fellowship, accepted. Letter from George Biddell Airy, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 29 September 1852, to Samuel Hunter Christie, Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: Mr. Weld had informed him of manuscripts relating to the Royal Observatory in the Society's archives, most importantly the minutes of the Visitors; he asks permission to have them transferred to Greenwich so that he might examine them in more detail, and take copies; the application was granted.
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