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: Andrew Ainslie Common; Andrew Russell Forsyth; Michael Foster; Richard Tetley Glazebrook; Sir Joseph Lister; William Davidson Niven; William Henry Perkin; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury; John Scott Burdon Sanderson; Thomas Edward Thorpe; William Augustus Tilden; the Treasurer, Sir John Evans; William Cawthorne Unwin; the President, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Death of George John Romanes. Letter from the Standards Department of the Board of Trade requesting the temporary return of the Imperial Yard and Pound for comparison with standards from the Russian Empire. Joseph Norman Lockyer to be added to the Instruments Committee. Report of the Government Grant Committee, listing recommendations for grants from Boards A-G, with total expenditure, and that a £500 reserve fund placed with Council, with a carried sum of £100 for the same purpose; and a resolution to request Government for additional funding, a letter to that effect to be drafted by the Secretaries. Note that a Fellow of the Society and grant applicant had demanded access to the minutes of the Government Grant Committee and Board; the reply to be that the Journal Book statute did not apply to the minutes and this decision should be printed on the reports of Boards for the use of the Committee. Additional form of wording on increase in grant amounts to be added to resolution 16 of the Government Grant Committee regulations. Letter from the Office of Works on parcels intended for Kew Observatory being sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens in error; the Secretary to write to the Kew Committee suggesting an change of name to 'Richmond Observatory'. Report of the Antarctic Committee, full text entered into the minutes, recommending an expedition of two wooden ships to the region, reminding Council of the 1887 Antarctic Committee report. The report, from Council Minutes of 1887, printed in full text; with a letter from C. G. Barrington, Treasury Chambers, 3 January 1888, to the Under Secretary of State for the Colonial Office, on financing an Antarctic Expedition. Consideration of the entire Antarctic Report deferred. Letter from the Convenors of the Sunday Opening Joint Deputation, requesting representatives from the Royal Society, refused. Report of the Joint Solar Eclipse Committee received. Letters from Mr. F. D. Fisher claiming a physiological discovery; a reply directed explaining that a paper should be written and submitted via a Fellow. Letter from Mr. John Trist offering to write the lives of Fellows of the Royal Society, declined. Letter from Mr. J. Wilson Newray protesting at the decision to refuse him a Royal Medal. Letter from Mr. Alfred W. Dollond, offering a bust of George Dollond, accepted. Request for support from the Organising Committee of the Congres Internationale des Americanistes declined. Professor Thorpe appointed a member of the Almoners of Christ's Hospital. Bill for engraving. |