| Description | Printed minutes containing matters laid before Council, the Royal Society's governing body of Fellows, with records of decisions taken. Individual minutes are numbered.
Commencing with a list of Council members present: Dr. Shelford Bidwell; Sir Thomas Launder Brunton; John Norman Collie; Francis Darwin (Foreign Secretary); Wyndham Rowland Dunstan; John Bretland Farmer; Sir Archibald Geikie (Foreign Secretary); Francis Gotch; Dr. Sydney Frederic Harmer; Sir William Huggins; Alfred Bray Kempe (Treasurer); Edwin Ray Lankester; Joseph Larmor (Secretary); Dr. John Edward Marr; George Ballard Mathews; Hugh Frank Newall; Sir William Davidson Niven; Ernest Henry Starling; William Augustus Tilden; the President, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, in the chair. The Assistant Secretary [Robert Harrison] attended.
Among matters discussed or noted:
1. Minutes of the previous meeting were read and signed as correct.
2. Death of Professor Weldon: Karl Pearson and Mr. Shipley requested to write an Obituary Notice.
3. Professor Hickson appointed to Chair the Sectional Committee on Zoology and Mr. Hickson appointed a member, in place of Professor Weldon.
4. A committee formed to consider a proposed astronomical survey of ancient British monuments.
5. Professor Larmor's proposal on offering back numbers of Proceedings to be renewed until July, then other suggestions for disposal would take effect, voted upon and carried.
6. The Royal Astronomical Society arrangement to have offprints for publication in their journals terminated, in the absence of other proposals from the Astronomical Society: this would not effect publication of eclipse observations.
7. Letter from G.H. Murray, Treasury Chambers, 11 April 1906, to the Secretaries of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: enclosing a letter by Sir William Ramsay, Institute of Chemistry, 30 Bloomsbury Square, 9 April 1906, to H.H. Asquith, Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Treasury, Whitehall; noting the value of the National Physical Laboratory, but lamenting its commercial mechanical and chemical testing, which is forbidden, according to the Report of the Treasury. With a memorandum on test work, 28 April 1906, containing the Royal Society's policy on the matter.
8. Report of the Government Grant Committee, with lists of grants made by Boards AG: £500 to be placed as a Reserve Fund at the disposal of Council and £1,370 voted from the Reserve Fund to meet the deficit on the General Fund account.
9. £300 from the Donation Fund voted to support the South African Meridian Arc, following a discussion on the exhaustion of the £36,000 provided by the British South Africa Company, with notes on other bodies providing emergency funding. Sir George Darwin had cabled Sir David Gill to proceed with the surveying party.
10. Professor Larmor called attention to a circular on the simplification of mathematical papers, to be made public for the guidance of authors.
11. Note on the illness of Lieutenant Tulloch, who contracted trypanosomiasis while investigating Sleeping Sickness in Uganda: a letter of appreciation to be sent, for his services.
12. Letter from Messrs Nicholson and Pemberton, solicitors of Manchester, suggesting that they appear for the Royal Society in the matter of a residue from the estate of Henry Dircks, a case in which they are already involved.
13. The President had addressed a letter to the President of the Academie des Sciences, expressing deep regret at the death by accident of M. [Pierre] Curie.
14. Letter from Arthur Ponsonby, 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 10 April 1906, to Lord Rayleigh, full text entered into the minutes: acknowledging the receipt of Rayliegh's letter concerning a proposed enquiry on animal experimentation, stating that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman consider this to be of great importance, but that the form of the enquiry has not yet been decided.
15. Letter from G.H. Murray, Treasury Chambers, 2 May 1906, to the Secretaries of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: thanking the Society for its valuable information and stating that the proposals for a revision of the primary triangulation of the Ordnance Survey would not sanctioned.
16. Extension of time for admission into the Fellowship granted to Professor Macallum.
17. Leave granted to Dr. H.M. Vernon for the return of illustrations, deposited in the archives.
18. Leave granted for copies of illustrations to be made by the Editors of Nature and Chemical News.
19. List of bills for payment, for printing, engraving and for other expenses. |