| 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: Captain William de Wiveleslie Abney; Sir Benjamin Baker; Isaac Bayley Balfour; William Thomas Blanford; George Carey Foster; Michael Foster; Sir Archibald Geikie; Richard Tetley Glazebrook; Frederick Ducane Godman; John Hopkinson; Joseph Norman Lockyer; John Gray McKendrick; William Davidson Niven; William Henry Perkin; Bartholomew Price; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury; Adam Sedgwick; William Augustus Tilden; 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. Death of Henry Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby. Letters from the Foreign Office; the first transmitting a silver medal struck for the Columbian celebration; the second on a misunderstanding resulting in the Brazil Eclipse Expedition being subject to Customs examination. Telegram from Professor Thorpe on a successful eclipse observation at Fundium. List of names of candidates for the Fellowship for election at the annual meeting in June, this to be communicated to The Times and to Nature. Letter from Professor Adams on a proposed magnetic observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, President and Council prepared to support the proposal. Treasurer authorised to draw a second sum of £250 from the £500 Government Grant reserve for the enquiry on pathogenic organisms in water. Letter from a Fellow with whom the President conferred [Royal College of Physicians' allegation] and this to be referred to a committee for that purpose. Letter from Mr. B. Joule, offering a bust of James Prescott Joule and his collection of instruments; the bust accepted, the instruments refused in favour of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society or the South Kensington Museum. £400 in two parts from the Scientific Relief Fund to be placed with Dr. Pye Smith for an applicant. £20 from the Donation Fund to Dr. Plantania of Acireale for the purchase of a microscope; £50 to Professor Schafer for research into cerebral localisation; £50 to Professor Roy for research on blood circulation; application from Mr. A. Harden deferred. Leave granted to P. von Radics to copy letters of Valvasor. An address to be prepared for the Rothamsted jubilee. Letter from Mr. C. S. Allison to attend weekly meetings on behalf of a daily newspaper, refused. Re-appointment of the Earl of Rosse and Alexander Macalister to the Government Grant Committee. Leave granted for the reprinting of papers and electrotype copies of illustrations. Bills for paper, engraving and for other expenses. |