| 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: Major-General John Theophilus Boileau; Warren De La Rue; Captain Frederick John Owen Evans; Edward Frankland; Albert Gunther; Thomas Wharton Jones; Joseph Norman Lockyer; Reverend Robert Main; Daniel Oliver; William Pole; Bartholomew Price; Warington Wilkinson Smyth; 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. New members of Council made and subscribed to the declaration in lieu of the oath. Appointment of Vice Presidents. The Treasury minute to be forwarded to the Meteorological Committee, Council to receive any relevant information on their past proceedings. Draft letter from George Gabriel Stokes, the Royal Society, Burlington House, 10 December 1875, to the First Lord of the Treasury, full text entered into the minutes: providing a history of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers and suggesting that a request for Parliamentary funding might be made for continued publication. Report of the Polar Committee was read and an additional payment of £75 to be made to both Professors Rupert Jones and W.G. Adams. Report of the Naturalists' Committee was read: £100 from the Donation Fund granted for publication of reports of the naturalists sent to Rodriguez and Kerguelen. Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker, Royal Gardens, Kew, 10 December 1875, to the Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: accepting specimens from Rodriguez and Kerguelen Islands. Letter from Wild, Barber and Brown, 10 1/2 Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside, 15 December 1875, to the Treasurer of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: informing the Society of a bequest of £2,000 consols from Richard Christopher Carrington; a letter to be written to Mrs. Carrington, his mother, in recognition. The Treasurer reported that he had received portraits in oils of Robert Boyle and Charles Wheatstone from the executors of Sir Charles Wheatstone, together with 19 framed photographs and lithographs of scientific men. Letter from Mr. H. Bohn offering to exchange a collection of Philosophical Transactions numbers and parts from 1665 to 1855 for the volumes from 1869 to 1875, and Proceedings: agreed, upon inspection by the Treasurer and Assistant Secretary. Notice received from the solicitors of the Houslow and Metropolitan Railway Company and the Turnham Green and Ealing Railway Company to construct lines across the Society's land at Acton: the Treasurer answered as dissenting. Reappointment of Committees with terms of reference and lists of members: the Library Committee; Soiree and House Committee; Acton Estate Committee; Davy Medal Committee; Challenger Expedition Committee; Committee to consider Naturalists' Reports from Kerguelen and Rodriguez; Government Grant Committee; Eclipse Committee. £250 to be placed with the Library Committee to meet expenses of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers; A donation of two guineas to be made to the parochial schools of Mablethorpe. The Society's siderostat, being returned from India, to be lent to Professor P.G. Tait after inspection by Messrs. Cooke. |