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: Arthur Cayley; George Peacock, the Very Reverend Dean of Ely; Joseph Dalton Hooker; William Hopkins; William Allen Miller; William Hallowes Miller; General Edward Sabine; William Sharpey; Rear-Admiral William Henry Smyth; George Gabriel Stokes; John Tyndall; the President, John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Report of the Committee on the North American Exploring Expedition, full text entered into the minutes: following communication with Mr. Palliser, Lieutenant Blakiston, Dr. Hector and M. Bourgeau were agreed as expedition staff and memoranda of instruction were issued to each; Lieutenant Blakiston has spent time at Kew Observatory to learn improved methods of magnetic and meteorological observation, and a series of instruments were recommended, with various lines of enquiry suggested. Report of a Committee to consider a Catalogue of Philosophical Memoirs, full text entered into the minutes: setting out the purposes for such a catalogue and the methodology to be employed in its completion; the committee estimated that 250,000 titles may have to be indexed, and provide the probable cost of the exercise, listing the types of journals to be involved; chemistry should be omitted except where such papers occur in collections of general science; ordered that 250 copies of the report be printed. Application was received from M. Quetelet on behalf of the Royal Academy of Belgium, for numbers of Proceedings, granted. Dr. Beale was allowed to make copies of certain drawings from his paper on the liver. Letter from Sir William Burnett, resigning his Fellowship, the resignation accepted. President and Officers were empowered to print in the Proceedings such abstracts of papers received during recess, before their reading to the Royal Society. |