| 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: Frederick Augustus Abel; William Bowman; Frederick William Bramwell; William Benjamin Carpenter; William Carruthers; Peter Martin Duncan; George Carey Foster; John Russell Hind; Thomas Henry Huxley; John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh; Sir George Henry Richards; Henry John Stephen Smith; William Spottiswoode; Balfour Stewart; George Gabriel Stokes; Allen Thomson; Alexander William Williamson; the President, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Deaths of Lieutenant-General Cameron, Lord Chelmsford, Reverend W.B. Clarke, Thomas Grubb, Professor Robert Harkness, John Hilton, Dr. Thomas Oldham, John Penn, and the Very Reverend Augustus Page Saunders, Dean of Peterborough. Treasurer reported that £1,000 of the Government Grant for 1878-1879 had been received. Stock of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers volumes 1-7 had been transferred to the Stationery Office. Adjudication of Royal Society medals considered and adjourned. List of retiring Members of Council and consideration of nomination of new Members. Report of the Meteorological Council tabled and ordered to be forwarded to Government. Letter from Henry Waterfield, India Office, 26 October 1878, to the Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: forwarding a copy of a letter on a proposal for earthquake observations. Letter, Lord Lytton, Simla, 2 September 1878, to Viscount Cranbrook, Secretary of State for India, full text entered into the minutes: giving thanks for the letter and enclosures from the Royal Society, on a proposal for earthquake observations at principal telegraph stations in India; Calcutta and Roorkee have been selected as suitable for trials with two pattern sets of instruments and he requests that Mr. Mallet furnishes instructions and suggestions or sketches for arranging the apparatus; a committee, including Mr. Mallet, to report on the subject. Leave granted to J.A.Fleming and to Dr. Lombard to copy their papers in the archives. Letter of thanks from Theodor Schwann. List of bill for payment, for printing, paper and for other expenses. |