Every student of actuarial literature can call to mind the writings of leading experts that deal with the methods to be employed in order to ascertain what pecuniary profit or loss has resulted from the mortality experienced by a life assurance company. In this path of knowledge, Mr. C. D. Higham may be said to have been, if not the first to tread the soil, at least the earliest to write, for the benefit of the community, a record of his travels. Certain it is that since his paper on the “Value of the Death-Strain” (J.I.A., xx, 153), the importance of considering the true amount rather than the nominal amount at risk in such investigations as I have referred to, has been freely recognized and acted upon; and the death-strain as a function in actuarial matters has been much written and talked about.