| 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; Peter Martin Duncan; Willam Henry Flower; Michael Foster; Edward Frankland; Francis Galton; William Augustus Guy; John Russell Hind; Thomas Henry Huxley; Reverend Robert Main; William Pole; Reverend Bartholomew Price; Admiral George Henry Richards; Henry John Stephen Smith; William Spottiswoode; Balfour Stewart; 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. The Secretary reported that the mahogany slips under the Society's Parliamentary standard yard had been replaced. Finance Committee's recomendation on the repeal of Statue 5 Chapter 3 was agreed to be balloted upon at the next meeting. Letter from R.R.W. Lingen, Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, 23 May 1877, to the President of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: thanking the Society for its contributions following the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the vote for Meteorology and relaying the decision that it was not thought advisable to assign the superintendence of meteorology to a Government office and that arrangements should continue with the Royal Society; suggestions for financing, with the addition of £1,000 to the vote, with this applied to salaries and committee expenses of an administrative Council, to be named by Council of the Royal Society. Council accept the responsibility to name a Meteorological Council of five members, including a Chair, and the Admiralty Hydrographer as an ex-officio member, with an annual report from the new Council to be transmitted to the Treasury: for the remainder of the year £1,000 will be granted for stated objectives and a committee to be formed to suggest names for the Meteorological Council. Letter from Ralph Thompson, War Office, 30 May 1877, to the Secretary, Royal Society, Burlington House, full text entered into the minutes: the Magnetical and Meteorological Department of the War Office having been abolished, the department's documents had been handed over to the Kew Committee; Mr. Hardy would be willing to hand these to the Royal Society, if acceptable. Letter from George Gabriel Stokes, the Royal Society, 11 June 1877, to Ralph Thompson, full text entered into the minutes: the Society will accept the offer of documents, but consider that Kew Observatory would be the best place to deposit them. Leave granted to Dr. Gunther and Mr. F. Darwin to reproduce or copy material relating to their papers in the Society's archives. Sir Henry Barkly's request for arrears of Philosophical Transactions was granted. £20 from the Donation Fund granted to Dr. Gowers for apparatus in his reserach on the sphincter ani. |