| 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; William Crookes; Francis Darwin; Michael Foster; Sir Douglas Galton; Alexander Henry Green; Sir John Kirk; Horace Lamb; Edwin Ray Lankester; Alexander Macalister; John Henry Poynting; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Arthur William Rucker; Osbert Salvin; John Scott Burdon Sanderson; Thomas Edward Thorpe; the Treasurer, Sir John Evans; the President, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Deaths of Arthur Cayley and Sir James Cockle: the President, two Secretaries and Sir George Gabriel Stokes to represent the Society at Professor Cayley's funeral, with the proposed visit to the Standards Office postponed until 21 February. The Officers had found it advisable to change the venue of the Ordinary Meeting (Rayleigh and Ramsay on the new gas) to the Lecture Theatre of the University of London; letters of thanks from the Presidents of the Chemical and Physical Societies for invitations to the meeting. Ordinary Meeting of 14 February to be devoted to Professor Weldon's paper, with discussion on 'Variation in Animals and Plants'. Grant of 250 francs to be given for a memorial to Lavoisier, following the receipt of a circular letter from the Academie des Sciences. Offer from Professors Rucker and Thorpe to bear part of the expenses of publishing on the magnetic survey of Great Britain, accepted. Report of the Catalogue Committee recommending salary increases for Miss Turner, Miss Gould, Miss Bremner and Miss Earthy. Government Grant application from Dr. Sharp on behalf of the Committee for Investigating the Fauna of the Sandwich Islands, answered with a £100 grant from the Donation Fund, to send Mr. Perkins without delay. Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary asking for a definition of the term 'Journal Books'; one devised, excluding the names of referees, minutes of committees created by Council, and the autonomous Kew Committee. Committee formed to determine the best method of realising the terms of the R. H. Gunning Trust. Letter from Francis Galton, Chairman of the Incorporated Kew Committee, Kew Observatory, Richmond, 22 December 1894, to Michael Foster, full text entered into the minutes; re-stating that the proposed name-change to the Kew Observatory would be detrimental to its operation, instead promising to revise its address for the sake of clarity. Letter from Francis Galton on Kew Observatory book-keeping referred to Messrs. W. B. Keen & Company. Note that the Meteorological Council had sent an unfavourable answer to the letter of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and that the Royal Society should follow suit. Seal of the Society affixed to the transfer of stock on account of the Darwin Medal Fund. Purchase of consols for the Brady Library Fund. Leave granted for electrotypes of illustrations. Letters of thanks for gifts from the Rumford Fund. Letter of thanks from Lord Justice Davey for his election into the Society. Bills for binding and taxes. |