Benefit or Friendly Sockiks. 91 



Taking, therefore, those circumstances into view, and more 

 especially that not nearly the same attention will be paid by 

 these societies in the selection of their members, as is done by 

 Life Assurance Companies, it is evident that a somewhat higher 

 table of mortality should be adopted for the purposes of the for- 

 mer than of the latter class of assurers. Security, no doubt, 

 ought always to be a principal object of these societies ; but, as is 

 remarked by Mr Babbage, " Safety is much more certainly sc- 

 cureil by judging as nearly as possible the true risk, and adding 

 an additional sum for security. If tables not representing the 

 mortality of the class for whom they ai'e designed are employed, 

 every step in the reasonings which are deduced from them is 

 liable to increased error ; and if the calculations are at all com- 

 pUcated, the errors so introduced may not improbably act on the 

 opposite side to that which they were introduced to favour."" 



By referring, then, to the table of expectations of life at p. 86, 

 it must be obvious that the rate of mortality adopted in the Re- 

 port of the Highland Society of Scotland will represent pretty 

 accurately that of the working classes, and consequently that 

 their table is the most suitable for all the purposes of Friendly 

 Societies. 



(To he continued,) 



Sketch of tlic Physkal Geography of tJie Malvern Hills. By 

 William Ainsworth, Esq. Member of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons, Edinburgh, &c. (Communicated by the Au- 

 thor). 



JL HE Malvern Hills form a range running nearly due north 

 and south, through part of the three counties of Gloucester, 

 Worcester and Hereford, and seldom attaining any great height ; 

 but their rugged outline, and bold accHvity, rising abruptly in 

 the centre of a champaign and level country, make them re- 

 markable, giving to the eye of the stranger *the same impres- 

 sions of independence of origin and formation, as their difference 

 of structure does to the judgment of the geognost. They have 

 not unaptly been compared to the Sierra of the Spaniards, 



