| 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; Warren De La Rue; Captain Douglas Galton; John Peter Gassiot; John Marshall; William Allen Miller; William Hallows Miller; Joseph Prestwich; Captain George Henry Richards; William Sharpey; Archibald Smith; George Gabriel Stokes; Colonel Alexander Strange; the President, Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Sabine, in the Chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Report on the Treasurer's accounts presented. Letter from W.R. Malcolm, Secretary, Public Schools Commission, 32 Abingdon Street, Westminster, 8 November 1869, to the Secretary of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: enclosing statutes for the future governing bodies of the schools of Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby and Shrewsbury; each should have one member nominated by the Royal Society and the statutes are being sent to the Privy Council. The Reverend Henry Stebbing to be appointed Fairchild Lecturer for the ensuing year. A donation of two guineas was made to the Parochial Schools of Mablethorpe. Letter from William Spottiswoode accepting his nomination to the governing body of Westminster School. Letter from Henri Victor Regnault, Sevres, 14 November 1869, to the President of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: giving thanks for the award of the Copley Medal, explaining his family circumstances and ability to attend Burlington House. Letter from Mr. Cayley stating that he had used the £10 from the Donation Fund to procure calculations by Mr. W.B. Davis which he had himself verified. Professor T.A. Hirst appointed to the Scientific Relief Committee. Access granted to Burlington House to the public for an exhibition of Old Master works at the Royal Academy. The third volume of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers was tabled, with printed sheets from the fourth. Letter from Colonel Alexander Strange, Lambeth Observatory, India Store Department, Belvedere Road, Lambeth, 16 June 1869, to the President of the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on national standards for barometers and thermometers, noting errors in a barometer delivered to him having been compared to instruments at Kew and Greenwich, with remarks on the history of the Greenwich barometer derived from the Royal Society's barometer; Strange enumerates several questions on the best form and construction of such instruments before passing on to tables of results of his working thermometers, with anomalies, including comparison with an instrument used by Captain A.R. Clarke of the Ordnance Survey. Report of the committee set up to consider Colonel Strange's letter, which makes suggestions, but which does not recommend a committee to consider national barometric and thermometric standards. Dr. Carpenter stated that a balance of £10 would remain from the scientific expenses of the Porcupine expedition, which he considered should be employed for the same purpose as the unspent grant from the Lightning expedition, approved. |