| 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: George Burrows; Heinrich Debus; Peter Martin Duncan; Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton; George Carey Foster; Francis Galton; John Peter Gassiot; Joseph Dalton Hooker; William Huggins; George Murray Humphry; Sir John Lubbock; William Hallowes Miller; William Sharpey; Charles William Siemens; Henry John Stephen Smith; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; the President, General Sir Edward Sabine, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Draft of a statute stating that the Royal Society may not make any dividend, gift, division or bonus in money between its members, approved to form Section 7 of Statute III. Seal of the Royal Society affixed to the Deed of Trust of the Gassiot Fund for maintaining Kew Observatory. A standing committee appointed for the management of Kew Observatory, with a list of members, currently members of the superintending committee of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade. Mr. Gassiot intended to hand over the half-year dividends in addition to the bonds, and therefore the £600 income placed at the disposal of the Kew Committee: Mr. Gassiot thanked for his munificent foundation. Letter from William Benjamin Carpenter, University of London, Burlington Gardens, 15 June 1871, to George Gabriel Stokes, full text entered into the minutes: noting the activity of other nations in physical and biological exploration of the deep sea and the importance of approaching Government in initiating a scheme for a more systematic course of research; recommending that the Royal Society appoint a committee drawn from the learned societies and the British Association to report to Council in order that a scheme might be laid before Government; the letter to be considered after recess. Letter from Mr. Lockyer, in reference to the solar eclipse of next December, the Officers to confer with Lockyer and William Huggins on the subject. £50 from the Donation Fund granted to Dr. Carpenter, towards the expenses for his return journey from Alexandria, following an exploratory cruise in the Mediterranean aboard H.M.S. Shearwater. |