The value, to the practical actuary, of Makeham's formula for the law of mortality, as a means of facilitating the calculation of joint-life benefits, is well established. Considerable use, for instance, is undoubtedly made of the tables appended to the second volume of the Institute Text-Book, in questions of everyday occurrence involving the computation by the HM Tables of annuities on three or four lives. In like manner, where the employment of Carlisle annuities is desirable, the tables prepared in 1880 (see J.I.A., xxii, 191), by Messrs. George King and G. F. Hardy, afford a ready means of obtaining results which are at once consistent, and substantially in agreement with values derived directly from the parent table. With regard, however, to the calculation of contingent survivorship benefits, it seems worthy of consideration whether something may not be done to render expressions based upon Makeham's formula better adapted than they are, in the shape in which they are usually presented, to meet the exigencies of practical requirements.

One of the most interesting questions in mortality statistics is that of hereditary influences, but very little light has hitherto been thrown on this subject. What effect will the good or bad health of the present generation have on that of the future one? In which way will nature eliminate the fatal germs of a family disposition? Will they disappear through a gradual dying out of the persons with such a disposition, or will they in the course of time grow less dangerous till at last they have lost entirely their original character? All these questions have hitherto been left almost unanswered in spite of the great scientific and economic interest attached to them.