The advances which have been made in valuation methods were brought home very forcibly to my mind when perusing the records of a valuation made many years ago.

During the past 50 or 60 years the valuation of complicated benefits has been, generally speaking, rendered a comparatively easy task, thanks to the energies of members of this and of other Actuarial Institutes—the Law of Makeham, to take one instance, has been the means of simplifying the solutions of a great number of difficult problems—and the numerous approximations to various intricate expressions, which have appeared from time to time in the pages of the Journal, have further lightened the labour of valuations.