| 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. Henry Frederick Baker; Arthur James Balfour; John Rose Bradford (Foreign Secretary); Sir William Crookes; Francis Darwin; Sir George Darwin; James Cossar Ewart; David Ferrier; Sir Archibald Geikie (Secretary); Charles Thomas Heycock; Sydney John Hickson; Alfred Bray Kempe (Treasurer); Joseph Larmor (Secretary); Charles Algernon Parsons; Dr. Alexander Scott; Albert Charles Seward; Augustus Desire Waller; William Whitaker; 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. Deaths of Mr. Arthur Lister, the Earl of Rosse, M. Becquerel and M. Mascart: Dr. D.H. Scott, Professor Joly, Sir William Crookes and Professor Trouton to be requested to write Obituary Notices.
3. Letter from Sir William Huggins, 90 Upper Tulse Hill, 17 October 1908, to Joseph Larmor, Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on two telescopes and an equatorial mountin placed with Huggins by the Royal Society in 1870, which Huggins can no longer use effectively. He describes the instruments and various adaptions made to them and notes that he has asked Mr. Newall if they might be found a home at the Astrophysical Department of Cambridge University. The Secretraries noted previous correspondence with Sir George Stokes and a Deed of Trust about the telescopes, considering it unlikely that any public observatory would accept them on loan. Council resolved to express regret that Sir William and Lady Margaret Huggins could no longer undertake stellar observations, accept the proposal to transfer the instruments as a gift to Cambridge Observatory, and impose the conditin that Sir William Huggins's name remains associated with the instruments.
4. Receipt of a draft scheme for the foundation of Birkbeck College, providing that one member of the governing body should be nominated by the Royal Society.
5. Francis Darwin nominated to represent the Royal Society on the governing body of Shrewsbury School, in place of Dr. Pye-Smith: a letter from Professor C.S. Sherrington resigning from the governing body of Charterhouse School, the nomination of a successsor deferred.
6. Letter from George R. Le Hunte, Government House, Adelaide, 4 August 1908, to the Earl of Crewe, full text entered into the minutes: on the subject of a solar photography station in Australia, expressing the opinion that this woudl be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government, but forwarding a note from Samuel John Way, Chancellor of Adelaide University, offering to undertake solar photography work at Adelaide Observatory if funding can be found. The matter referred to the Solar Research Committee
7. Attention called to a memorandum of Practical Suggestions on Mathematical Notation and Printing, circulated to Council, ordered to be printed in Proceedings for the guidance of authors.
8. A grant of £25 from the Donation Fund voted to the Royal Socuety Club, for exoenses incurred in entertaning the delegates to the Inernational Conference on Electric Units.
9. Treasurer reported on necessary expenditure for redecoration.
10. Reported that the installation of a new boiler had been deemed necessary by H.M. Office of Works: this was nealrly completed but was still the subject of correspondence between the Royal Society and the Office of Works.
11. List of retiring Members of Council and consideration of proposals for replacement members for the following year deferred.
12. Decision on the award of Royal Society medals deferred until the next meeting.
13. Attention drawn to the variance in practice on the adjudication of Royal Society medals in recent years: resolved to make amendments in the procedure, text of these entered into the minutes.
14. Professor R.H. Biffen appointed to represent the Royal Society on the Lawes Agricultural Trust Committee.
15. Alfred Lyttleton appointed to represent the Royal Society as a Trustee of the Lawes Agricultural Trust.
16. Report on Professor A.H. Church's work in preparing a catalogue of the Classified Papers, the manuscript presented in a handsome binding, which he proposed to publish a shortened version of, for private circulation: and Church offered £20 towards the cost of rebinding some of the older Journal Books.
17. Professor A. Gamgee appointed to represent the Royal Society in celebrations for the bicentenary of the birth of A. Haller: a suitable address sealed for presentation to the University of Bern.
18. Letter from Archibald Geikie, Secretary, the Royal Society, 10 July 1908, to the Under Secretary of State, Home Office, full text entered into the minutes: noting that the Glassworkers' Cataracts Committee has set up two sub-committees in connection with the investigation, one of which proposes to visit principal glass manufactories for information, the other to draw up some laboratory experiments; Geikie asks if the Home Office is prepared to defray any expenses. Letter from Herbert Samuel, Home Office, Whitehall, 29 July 1908, to the Secretaries, the Royal Society, Burlington House, full text entered into the minutes: approving of the investigations but stating that Mr. Gladstone has no funds to underwrite them, suggesting that expenses should be paid from the Government Grant for Scientific Investigations. Letter from Archibald Geikie, Royal Society, Burlington House, 8 August 1908, to the Secretary of State, Home Office, full text entered into the minutes: regretting that no funds are available to underwrite the research into Glassworkers' Cataracts; the Government Grant funds for the year were fully allocated in May, according to thr regulations approved by the Treasury, and the Society has no funds of its own for the research.
19. The Foreign Secretary nominated to represent the Royal Society on a committee to select a Director of an Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine, to be established in Queensland.
20. The Treasurer reported the receipt from the Treasury of £2,000 as part of the Government Grant for Scientific Investigations and £500 for the Publicaion Grant.
21. Leave granted to the Egypt Exploration Fund for the use of the Royal Society's rooms.
22. List of dates fixed for Council Meetings in the coming year.
23. Draft of the Annual Report of Council to the Fellowship tabled and directed to be circulated to Council.
24. Leave granted for copies of illustrations and to reprint papers.
25. List of bills for payment for LIbrary books. |