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: Francis Baily; Henry James Brooke; Robert Brown; Samuel Hunter Christie; John Thomas Graves; Dr. Robert Lee; Sir John William Lubbock; Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell; William Hasledine Pepys; George Rennie; Peter Mark Roget; William Henry Fox Talbot; Charles Wheatstone; the President, Spencer Joshua Alwyn Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Mr. Brooke and Mr. Talbot made and subscribed to the declaration in lieu of the oath. James MacCullagh and Captain S. E. Widdrington applied for extensions to the period of admission to the Fellowship, granted. Letter from Lieutenant J. Melville Gillies, London, 14 February 1843, to President and Council of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: an observatory is to be established at Washington under the Secretary of the Navy and Gillies lists instruments and books he is commended to obtain; he notes that the Royal Society holds copies of observations of early astronomers and he requests copies of these and also Philosophical Transactions. Letter from Captain W. H. Smyth, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, to Samuel Hunter Christie, full text entered into the minutes: he has been comparing optical power of instruments and asks to borrow Sir Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope; Council does not wish to create a precedent but offers every facility to make the comparison in the Society's apartments. Seal of the Royal Society affixed to a notice for John Cross to quit the Society's estate at Mablethorpe. Letter from Colonel Colby asking to borrow the book of observations of Kater, Arago, Mattieu and Colby on cross-Channel triangulation; Council to offer facilities to copy the originals in the Society's apartments. Application from M. W. Schiek of Berlin to be allowed carriage expense for a microscope to be submitted to the Royal Society, declined. |