| 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: William Henry Barlow; Thomas George Bonney; George Busk; Sir Richard Assheton Cross; Edwin Dunkin; Alexander John Ellis; John Evans (Treasurer); Thomas Archer Hirst; William Huggins; Thomas Henry Huxley; Alfred Newton; William Odling; Daniel Oliver; Sir James Paget; William Henry Perkin; Henry Tibbats Stainton; George Gabriel Stokes; Lieutenant-General Richard Strachey; Alexander William Williamson; the President, William Spottiswoode, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Deaths of the Earl of Caithness and Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton. List of candidates for election to the Fellowship to be recommended at the Annual Meeting in July. Nominations of Gabriel Auguste Daubree, Jean Charles Marignac, Carl Nageli and Carl Weierstrass for Foreign Membership of the Royal Society. Letter from Major J. Herschel and an enclosure from Mr. C.S. Peirce, U.S. Coastal Survey was tabled, with a memorandum sent by the Kew Committee, full text entered into the minutes: the pendulums no.4 and 1821 reported upon by Mr. Whipple, including damage to a brass tail-piece which can be repaired, but the pendulums would need to be re-swung to ascertain whether any changes had occurred; a history of the pendulums is given, with discrepancies caused by the re-grinding of the knife-edges. A memorandum was read from the authorities of the South Kensington Museum, in reply to enquiries about the safe-keeping of pendulums. A draft reply to Major John Herschel was read, noting changes to the pendulums he had requested, and that they would need to be re-swung: Council would be willing to lend them to Mr. Peirce for this purpose, if they were not required for Herschel's gravity work. Bill for payment for furnace coal and coke. |