138 HISTORY OF THE [i86o-;o 
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,