| 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: Frederick Augustus Abel; William Benjamin Carpenter; Arthur Cayley; Jacob Lockhart Clarke; John Evans; Captain Douglas Galton; John Peter Gassiot; John Hall Gladstone; Sir Rowland Hill; William Huggins; Thomas Henry Huxley; William Allen Miller; William Hallows Miller; John Phillips; Andrew Crombie Ramsay; William Sharpey; Colonel William James Smythe; George Gabriel Stokes; Colonel Alexander Strange; Thomas Thomson; the President, Lieutenant-General Edward Sabine, in the Chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Candidates for Fellowship were considered and a list was selected by ballot of candidates to be recommended to the Royal Society for election. Letter from Bennet Woodcroft, Secretary to the Commissioners of Patents, transmitting a memorial by Mr. Dillwyn and others on the subject of the Patent Office, with a letter from Lord Romilly, for the consideration of Council: before discussing the documents, the President, Treasurer and Senior Secretary would communicate with Lord Romilly and report back on the interview. Letter from Georg Neumayer, 11 Gower Street, 30 April 1868, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: following his retirement as Superintendent of the Observatory at Melbourne, he had special authority to copy the journals and registers for the purposes of his publications; since this is now drawing to a close, he wishes to present his observations on meteorology and terrestrial magnetism in sixteen volumes to the Royal Society; accepted with thanks. Letter from James Hingston, 7 Chancery Lane, Melbourne, Victoria, 3 March 1868, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, London, full text entered into the minutes: an 'old colonist' wishes to leave an annual income of £250 to the Royal Society to reward the best essay sent in on the immortality of the soul; Hingston enquires about arrangements for what he terms Johnsons' Fund; the reply to be that the Royal Society would not take over the fund, as it does not agree with the purposes for which the Society was founded; but an amendment moved by Dr. Carpenter and Colonel Strange postponed a reply to the proposal until the next meeting. £20 from the Donation Fund granted to Edmund J. Mills for experiments on nitro-compounds. |