| 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: John Couch Adams; Major-General John Theophilus Boileau; Warren De La Rue; Captain Frederick John Owen Evans; Edward Frankland; Albert Gunther; Thomas Henry Huxley; 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. Deaths of Campbell De Morgan and George William, Lord Lyttelton. Report from the Library and Catalogue Committee, full text entered into the minutes: on progress with the Catalogue of Scientific Papers, recommendations on depositing a triplicate set of Philosophical Transactions with the University of London, other journal grants and exchanges, and recommending that the Secretary of State for India should be approached to accept the Society's collection of oriental manuscripts, with conditions; the report accepted. The question of providing a fireproof room referred to the House Committee. Report of the Soiree Committee read. The Treasurer reported the receipt of £500 from the estate of Sir Charles Wheatstone, allowing the purchase of consols in aid of the Donation Fund: the fourth share of the Dircks bequest had been received, with resulting investments; and a notice for income tax had been received, which he had appealed against, and the President to communicate with the Treasury on ths subject. The Treasurer presented a certified list of instruments loaned to the Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington. Lists of names suggested for the award of Royal Society medals. Letter from the India Office stating that the Secretary of State had sanctioned the payment of £15 for the expense of printing extra copies of the paper by C. Chambers on magnetic observations at Bombay. Letter from the Office of Works on orders for the supply of fire-buckets and hoses, with arrangements for inspection: the Treasurer requested to reply. Letter signed by Henry W. Bristow and Robert Hunt suggesting that copies of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers should be presented to Fellows of the Royal Society had been referred to the Library Committee: Council's decision was that the suggestion could not be entertained. Letter from R.H. Scott enclosing a statement by the Acting Superintendent of Kew Observatory in reply to Dr. Hector's letter ordered to be sent to Hector. Leave granted to J. Norman Lockyer to take electrotypes of illustrations for a reprint in Nature. Letter from Charles Gordon-Lennox, Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Science and Art Department, South Kensington, 29 April 1876, to the President of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on the proposal to increase the Government Grant to £5,000, to be reported upon annually and with other conditions, including recommendations for ex officio members of the Government Grant Committee; requesting the opinion of Council of the Royal Society. Resolved that the reply to state that Council will accept the proposal on the understanding that their recommendations would be acepted or declined as a whole: they do not see the necessity of annual reporting on each individual investigation under the scheme. |