| 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: Captain Frederick John Owen Evans; John Evans; Albert Gunther; Thomas Henry Huxley; Joseph Norman Lockyer; Nevil Story Maskelyne; Charles Watkins Merrifield; Lyon Playfair; Andrew Crombie Ramsay; John Scott Burdon Sanderson; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; Alexander William Williamson; the President, Joseph Dalton Hooker, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Report of the auditors of the Treasurer's accounts. Deaths of Thomas Hewitt Key, William Sanders and Charles Blacker Vignoles. William Spottiswoode and Warren De La Rue appointed to the Scientific Relief Committee. Report of the Election Statutes Committee, full text entered into the minutes: recommending no changes to existing practice in the selection of candidates via Council or their number. Report of the Davy Medal Committee read. Read a letter from the Admiralty reporting the death of R. von Willemoes-Suhn, a naturalist attached to the Challenger Expedition. Letter from W.H. Smyth, Treasury Chambers, 10 November 1875, to the President of the Royal Society, enclosing a copy of a Treasury minute, full text entered into the minutes: concerning a grant of £10,000 in aid of the study of meteorology and proposing to review the current working arrangements in the care of the Royal Society; with a list of the proposed members of the reviewing committee. Letter from Norman MacLeod, South Kensington Museum, London, 27 November 1875, to the Secretaries of the Royal Society, Burlington House, full text entered into the minutes: requesting the loan of instruments for the forthcoming Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus at the South Kensington Museum; granted, on the approval of safe custody arrangements by the Officers. Letter from Few and Company, 19 Surrey Street, Strand, 24 November 1875, to Walter White, full text entered into the minutes: on the completion of the Acton parsonage site and enclosing a cheque for £349. Letter from Robert Sabine, 25 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, 16 November 1875, the the Secretary of the Royal Society, London, full text entered into the minutes: as executor of the estate of Sir Charles Wheatstone, he notifies the Society of a legacy of £500 for the Wollaston Donation Fund, portraits of Robert Boyle by Kneller and Charles Wheatstone by C. Martin, and a variety of other prints and photographs, recommending that a representative of the Royal Society select those that the organisation might want; the donations accepted with thanks. A letter from Dr. Carpenter was read. A letter from Mr. Gwyn Jones was referred to the Naturalists' Committee. Letter from E. Ray Lankester requesting the loan of original drawings of illustrations in Dr. Carpenter's paper on Comatula: permission to be given to copy them within the Society's apartments, if Carpenter has no objection. The Secretaries were instructed to draft a letter to the Treasury to seek assistance in publishing the Catalogue of Scientific Papers from 1864 to 1873, with a statement of sales of the volumes already published. Report of the Naturalists' Committee, with drafts of letters to the Principal Librarian of the British Museum and to the Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, full text entered into the minutes: on their willingness to accept specimens from the islands of Rodriguez and Kerguelen collected during the Transit of Venus Expeditions, with conditions. £50 placed in the hands of Dr. Gladstone, and £40 with Dr. Hooker, for the benefit of applicants to the Scientific Relief Fund. Report of the Kew Committee presented and ordered to be printed in the Proceedings. |