| 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: Thomas Bell; Samuel Hunter Christie; Sir James Clark; John Gassiot; Thomas Graham; Sir William Robert Grove; Leonard Horner; Sir Robert Harry Inglis; Sir Charles Lyell; Dr William Allen Miller; Richard Owen; Dr Peter Roget; Colonel Edward Sabine; Charles Wheatstone; George Rennie, Treasurer, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: revisions to the regulations for membership of committees including limiting the term served in a committee, a proportion of each committee to change annually, no Fellow to serve on more than one committee at a time, each committee to have a Chairman and a Secretary, three to be quorum. The functions of the Committees appointed to aid the Council agreed as follows: to report on eligibility of papers for publication in Philosophical Transactions, recommend a person for the award of the Copley Medal, to recommend a paper in Philosophical Transactions deserving of the Royal Medal, Physics and Chemistry committees to make a recommendation for the award of the Rumford Medal, recommendations for appropriation of the Donation Fund, referral of papers to suitable referees and communication of the referees' reports to Council with the committee's recommendation. Agreed that the printing and distribution, in 1848, of multiple inconsistent balloting lists for the election of new Fellows will not set a precedent. A letter from Walter White attendant of the Assistant Secretary referred to the Committee of Finance (letter not reproduced in minutes, see also CMP/2/34).
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