| 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; George Burrows; George Busk; Robert Bellamy Clifton; Heinrich Debus; Peter Martin Duncan; George Carey Foster; Francis Galton; Thomas Archer Hirst; William Hallowes Miller; Sir James Paget; Laurence Parsons, 4th Earl of Rosse; William Sharpey; William Spottiswoode; 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. Professor Miller appointed to represent the Royal Society at the celebrations of the anniversary of the Brussels Academy. Letter from Ferdinand Stoliczka, Asiatic Society's Rooms, Calcutta, 14 March 1872, to William Sharpey, Honorary Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: laying before Council correspondence with the Government of India on dredging operations in the Indian Ocean, stating that the cost of equipment would likely not exceed £200 and requesting Council's views; referred to the Circumnavigation Expedition Committee with the request that they furnish Council with a list of appropriate apparatus for India dredging. Letter from Mr. Sintzenich, recommended by Dr. Gladstone, requesting permission to copy portraits of Samuel Chandler, Henry More and John Wallis for the Congregational Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street, granted. List of candidates for the Fellowship to be recommended for election at the Annual Meeting on 6 June. Letter from William Crookes complaining about disparaging statements made by a Fellow of the Royal Society in reference to Crookes's election and the reason for the non-acceptance of certain papers by him: President and Council regretted that these statements had been published, as incorrect in fact, and as publication of Council deliberations is contrary to usage; the resolution to be communicated to Mr. Crookes. Letter from George Rolleston, Oxford, 17 April 1872, to George Gabriel Stokes, full text entered into the minutes: forwarding a letter from his brother, on setting up an observatory in Canterbury, New Zealand. Memorandum, from William Rolleston, Superintendent of Canterbury, 9 January 1872, full text entered into the minutes: on the formation of a society to promote the establishment of an observatory in Christchurch and the simultaneous statement of the Astronomer Royal that the location would be the best place to observe the Transit of Venus in 1874; with a list of queries for institutions in England. The reply to be that President and Council cannot offer help, but would consider any application for an exchange of publications, once the observatory was established. Motions of the President with regard to Kew Observatory and the competency of President and Council to make enquiry on its use as a meteorological station, motion 1 not seconded and therefore resolutions on 2-3 not pursued. Consideration of the President's motion with regard to the Government Grant Committee deferred. List of bills for payment, for printing and lithography. |