Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/162

 138 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70 By the minute of June 1857, the Council resorted to an inter- mediate measure, and left it to the Treasurer to advise every half- year. The Committee further stated that the funded property of the Society, excluding the Lee and Turnor funds, amounted to 4900, and that the number of compounders was 160, whose compositions were represented by 3500; and that the position of the Society was therefore more than solvent in this respect, there being an excess of 1400, accumulated partly by bequests and partly by saving. They concluded their report by certain recommenda- tions, dictated, they said, rather by motives of policy than by necessity : (a) That as nearly as circumstances will allow, all compositions should be funded. (b) That considering that the Monthly Notices have now attained a bulk amply sufficient for their intended purpose, the editor be desired not to exceed 24 octavo sheets. (c) That in the case of papers for the Memoirs, the actual ballot be deferred to the meeting of the Council in June of each year, so as to allow of the formation of a scheme for the whole volume for the year. These recommendations, with a couple of others of minor importance, were unanimously adopted, as appropriate for immedi- ate action. Samuel Charles Whitbread [1796-1879] had joined the Society in 1849, and succeeded George Bishop as Treasurer in 1857; he reigned over our finances for twenty-one years. Whitbread was M.P. for Middlesex for ten years, and in spite of his interests in politics and hunting, he found time in which he devoted himself to the study of astronomy and meteorology, building an Observa- tory at his residence at Cardington, near Bedford, and becoming with John Lee and James Glaisher one of the three founders of the Meteorological Society in 1850. In 1861 a Committee, consisting of the Astronomer Royal, Manners, Vignoles, Adams, Whitbread, Jacob, De la Rue, and Carrington, was appointed to take into consideration the advisa- bility of establishing for a limited number of years a Hill Observa- tory in India. The matter had been mooted and much discussed in 1858-9, but it had been laid aside in consequence of the unrest which followed the Indian Mutiny. The subject was revised by Carrington and Jacob, who had recently resigned the Directorship of the Madras Observatory by reason of ill-health. Jacob sub- mitted his views to the Committee in the following terms : It has constantly been remarked that it would be indeed difficult among numerous observing stations and fine instruments which now exist, to point to a single one where a telescope of decent,