| 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 James Allman; John Ball; Heinrich Debus; Peter Martin Duncan; George Carey Foster; Francis Galton; Thomas Archer Hirst; William Hallowes Miller; William Sharpey; George Gabriel Stokes; Isaac Todhunter; Sir Charles Wheatstone; the President, George Biddell Airy, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. The President communicated his correspondence with the Meteorological Committee of the Board of Trade. Report of the Government Grant Committee in the form of minutes of the meeting of 8 February 1872: letters from Warren de La Rue on expenditure on the Kew Photoheliograph and measuring and reducing the photographs of 1871-1872; from Balfour Stewart tranferrring his grant funding to the Kew Committee, but being informed that this should be subject to a new application from Kew; a list of grant applications, with decisions on grants provisionally voted, approved by Council. Interim report from the Soiree Committee making recommendations for one soirree only, on invitation cards, service, and a preliminary list of invitations to non-Fellows, accepted with amendments. Report of the Committee on the proposed observation of tides by self-registering mechanism at Heliogoland, full text entered into the minutes: noting the topography of the island, previous attempts to make observations, and a potential method employing a pit, sunk inland, with a tide gauge, but with caveats on this methodology; the report adopted and to be transmitted to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Draft of an address of congratulation to H.M. Queen Victoria, on the restoration to health of the Prince of Wales, full text entered into the minutes: approved, to be submitted to that evening's meeting of Fellows and then signed by the President. A committee to be appointed to receive reports on the Society's new house and to advise on interior fittings, membership listed. Letter from Edward Frankland, the Chemical Society, Burlington House, 12 February 1872, to William Spottiswoode, Treasurer of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: agreeing to terms for the supply of copies of the Proceedings. Letter from Professor R. Lipschitz, University of Bonn, 6 February 1872, to the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on the anniverary of Professor Argelander, the Foreign Secretary requested to make a suitable reply. Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker, 14 February 1872, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on canvassing by candidates for Fellowship and the employment of non-Fellows to obtain signatures, which may be happening through ignorance of procedures; Hooker recommends a printed slip to be issued with the form of certificate and the number of required signatures limited to six personal and six through general knowledge. Notice given by Professor Foster that he would move resolutions relating to the work of the Government Grant Committee, full text entered into the minutes. Sir Charles Wheastone made application for portions of the Society's platinum and palladium, not exceeding four ounces of each, granted. List of bills for payment, for lithography, engraving and for surveying at Mablethorpe. |